July-August 2016 Oceania Edition

54 Business View Australia - July - August 2016 Starting with the road network, the council oversees 858 km of unsealed roads along with 44.8 km of sealed roads inboth township and rural areas. As the council’s budget is quite small, maintaining the road network has proven to be a consistent challenge. However, together with Tonkins Consulting, the council has tirelessly worked over the last 18 months in order to formalize a plan for the long- term sustainability of the roads and to minimize the costs associated with maintenance. With good data, the council is also able to predict and solve issues proactively. Improving road infrastructure for safe journeys One such project concerns the 5 km of shoulder widening on a very busy road. Around harvest time, there are a lot of huge grain trucks on the road. That alone would not have been an issue but there are plenty of tourists who use the exact same road at the same times. In order to minimize the danger and avoid any accidents in the future, the council decided that shoulder widening was the best course of action. According to Andrew Cole, the CEO of the Council, there was another interesting challenge for this project. “It’s been good from my perspective that the state government has been running one project and we’ve been