Additional roads well down on last year

An additional 1.9 kilometres of road has been added to Baw Baw Shire's public roads register.

An annual review of council's register revealed three kilometres of sealed and unsealed roads were added to the register while 1.1 kilometres of unsealed roads were removed.

The overall length of the road network increased 1.9 kilometres, at an annual maintenance and operational ocst to council of $8827.

Roads gifted to council through subdivisions totalled 2.6 kilometres and were largely in Warragul, Drouin and Longwarry.

In response to customer requests, council added an additional 360 metres of unsealed roads including Ranch Rd at Tanjil South, Black Diamond Trk at Walhalla and a 200 metre section of Hallyburton Grove in Warragul.

The 1.1 kilometres of roads removed from council's maintenance list included two sections of Shirley Rd at Neerim South, an 860 metre section of Toorongo Valley Rd at Noojee and Kuhnell Rd at Neerim North. They were all classed as private roads.

The report to council said growth in subdivision developments had led to increased data requirements for council.

Officers said changes to the procedures were crucial to ensure council officers could efficiently and accurately report on new road data from developers.

Cr Darren Wallace said the public roads register was compiled in 2004 and every year council received a report on what roads had been gifted to the network and what roads had been closed.

He said the report was significantly different to last year's update when there was an additional $73,000 cost.

Cr Wallace said there had been a delay in data updates. "I suspect we will be reporting a much larger number next year when this data catches up," he said.