ALGA has provided a submission to the National Transport Commission (NTC) Consultation Regulatory Impact Statement (C-RIS) – Reforms to Heavy Vehicle National Law (HVNL), warning that the reforms raise concerns regarding road safety and damages to local infrastructure.
Councils manage a road network that amounts to approximately 77 per cent of total road length in Australia, or 678,000km, and the National Transport Commission estimates 36 per cent of all kilometres travelled in Australia are on local roads.
ALGA said that, as a result, councils are heavily invested in building and maintaining more resilient road networks for the communities they serve and for the wider economic benefits to the nation.
In the statement, ALGA warns that there continues to exist a mismatch between the mass and dimensions of heavy vehicles seeking to access the ‘first and last mile’ road networks managed by councils, and the capacity for those road networks to freely support their movement.
