After a horror wet spring which saw bitumen torn up across the region, a drier start to the year has let council play catch-up with its various road patch and reseal programs and it is now reporting 'significant progress'.
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The City of Ballarat says its summer resealing program has been completed, with about 367,015 square-metres across 91 roads worked on across the city.
Contractors are halfway through the council's major patching and overlay program, which looks to target 29,110 square-metres covering 82 roads.
The $2.9 million major patching and overlay program was given the green light at a council meeting in late November 2022, with a $2.1 million contract being awarded to Boral Resources. Both projects were given a deadline of March 31 to be completed.
Elsewhere in Ballarat, almost all kerb and channelling has been completed on the Tait Street reconstruction project - with the final base layer ready to be laid. Notorious for its "tyre-eating" potholes by residents who use the road, Tait Street was selected by council in August 2022 for the $2 million reconstruction.
The project involved the reconstruction of an 880-metre stretch of the roadway between the Crown Street/Tait Street roundabout and Walker Street, attracted five tender applications, with council officers settling on Ballarat-based company Pipecon Pty Ltd.
The roundabout at the intersection of Warrenheip and Navigators roads has also been completed.
The project is partly funded by the federal government's Roads to Recovery fund, and cost just over a million dollars.
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The construction of the roundabout at Ring Road and Gregory Street West is also now underway.
The spate of rain which hit the state in late 2022 sparked concerns about the council's road patching program, and whether its pothole tracker application could keep up with the amount of damage done by the deluge and increased traffic.
But The Courier is still getting reports of bad road damage from Ballarat and neighbouring shires, particularly where heavy truck traffic and even short downpours such as Friday's 13mm cause pothole fillings to be ruptured and opened up.
Roadwork is now underway to rebuild a 400-metre section of the highway south of Elaine. Motorists using the Midland Highway are advised to be aware of traffic disruptions as the work continues on a stretch of the road between Ballarat and Geelong.
Crews are expected to complete the works in two weeks, with traffic management in place around the worksite, reducing speeds to 40km/h.
Crews have completed more than 937km of flood recovery activities as part of the state government's $165 million emergency road repair blitz.
Elsewhere in Ballarat, Dana Street has been closed off in both directions until the end of March for work on new pedestrian crossings.
The two pedestrian crossings will be "raised", according to the City of Ballarat, with the street to reopen on March 31.
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