Councils and their management of infrastructure and assets
Councils manage a wide variety of infrastructure, including roads, bridges, stormwater drains, culverts, footpaths, parks, community facilities and more.
Our communities rely on the use of local government infrastructure as part of our everyday lives at home and work.
Councils aim to deliver infrastructure that meets the requirements of their community. However, this work is limited by the costs that communities are prepared or able to pay for; they need to carefully manage their infrastructure via detailed financial and asset planning.
Local roads and bridges make up a significant proportion of councils’ assets, with local government managing 80% of the state’s public roads in Tasmania. Roads enable people and goods to move around and support local economies. Heavy vehicles have a disproportionally high impact on roads and structures, and are critically important for productivity and freight.
The Tasmanian Government imposes a Motor Tax on heavy vehicles to recover the cost of road wear and tear from heavy vehicles. Despite Tasmanian councils supporting 8% of heavy vehicle transport movements on roads that they manage, the Tasmanian Government shares only 1.7% (and falling) of the Heavy Vehicle Motor Tax revenue with councils to provide heavy vehicle access and support Tasmania’s economy.
Did you know?
Public roads
Councils own and manage around 14,470 km of public roads or 80% of the Tasmanian public road network
Asset share
While local government provides 25% of infrastructure assets in Australia, councils only receive 4% of tax revenue to manage those assets.
Freight movement
According to the most recent Tasmanian Freight Survey, local government supported around 8% of road freight transport.
How LGAT advocates for Tasmanian councils
We continue to support councils’ hard work in managing infrastructure networks through developing resources, training and guidance material, and submissions to essential Tasmanian and Federal Government consultations with the sector.
Financial and Asset Management
We have supported the development of a suite of resources and delivered training to support Tasmanian councils’ financial and asset management. We also facilitate the Tasmanian Asset Management Group (TAMG), with participation from experts and new professionals from councils, the Tasmanian Government and public infrastructure corporations.
Development Standards
We work collaboratively with the Institute of Public Works Engineers Australasia – Tasmania Division to develop and maintain a suite of documents that provide standards for development. These are publicly available on the Development Requirements - Tasmanian Municipal Standards page.
Infrastructure visioning – local and state collaboration
We continue to advocate for coherent interface and planning between State and Local Government-managed infrastructure networks based on sound asset management principles. In our submission to Our Infrastructure Future – 30-Year Infrastructure Strategy, we highlighted the missing connection with local government’s role in delivering and managing community infrastructure critical to supporting the lifestyles Tasmanians enjoy.
Heavy vehicles
We support best practice collaboration between the Tasmanian Government, council road managers, the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator and industry in delivering nation-leading heavy vehicle access to the Tasmanian road network whilst maintaining the safety of other road users.
This Tasmanian Government-led collaboration has focused on:
- Maximising efficient and safe heavy vehicle access and minimising permit assessment times
- Understanding and unlocking available capacity in bridge structures and road networks to support safe and productive heavy vehicle access
- Professionally, transparently and equitably managing the risks to road and bridge assets and community safety.
To see what part of the Tasmanian road network your heavy vehicle can access, see the Tasmania's Heavy Vehicle Access Management System (HVAMS).
We continue to advocate on behalf of Tasmanian councils to the National Transport Commission (NTC) in its Heavy Vehicle National Law Review project. We made its first submission to the NTC’s Easy Access to Suitable Routes – Issues Paper, which you access on our submissions page.