Campaspe Shire mayor Adrian Weston said the disproportionate number of deaths on country roads compared to the city indicated to him that more money should be spent on roads in rural and regional areas.

Cr Weston said it was hard to imagine there ever being too much funding for roads.

“I don’t think there’d be a single councillor that would refuse additional funding,” he said.

Loddon Shire mayor Neil Beattie said the condition of country roads had generally been deteriorating.

Cr Beattie said federal funding received by the council through the Roads to Recovery program had been “very good” and state funding had been “OK”, but he believed it was Victoria’s roads body that was not adequately resourced.

“The big issue seems to be that VicRoads doesn’t have sufficient funding to look after our country roads,” Cr Beattie said.

Bendigo East MP and Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said the state government had spent every day of the past two years addressing roads issues.

“That’s why we’ve made an unprecedented investment of $1 billion to upgrade unsafe and congested roads, bridges and level crossings in regional communities, including central Victoria,” Ms Allan said.

This year’s budget included $90 million for roads in northern Victoria, about half of which is for maintenance work.

The budget allocated $130 million for roads maintenance and resurfacing.

The local road network is Campaspe Shire’s single largest cost, taking up $11 million of its money in 2015-16.

That is in addition to the $4.1 million it received through the Roads to Recovery program that year, a figure that more than doubled from the previous year.

This year the council was allocated $4.7 million from the program.

But Cr Weston said that it remained difficult just to maintain the level of service currently provided.

Councils used to receive $1 million per year from the state government’s Country Roads and Bridges program, but that funding ended in 2014-15.

Months of wet weather and subsequent flooding caused more headaches on the roads, with Loddon Shire estimating the damage to its network to be worth about $10 million.

Ms Allan said VicRoads would prioritise inspections in flood-affected areas and repairs would follow.

Councils also expect to receive natural disaster funding from the federal government.

POTHOLES and patches are a common sight on rural and regional roads and have only become more frequent in the wake of months of rain.

Country roads tend to suffer the worst damage, but there are plenty of residential streets that are also scarred by potholes.

Beenish Fahad, a resident of Goynes Road in Epsom, described her street as “pretty busy and pretty bad”.

She said she had to negotiate not only oncoming traffic but also potholes when reversing out of her driveway.

The road was repeatedly mentioned by Bendigo Advertiser readers on social media when asked about the worst roads they came across, a request that received dozens of replies.

Bracewell Street in Maiden Gully, the Northern Highway north of Rochester and Allies Road at Myers Flat were also among the roads that were considered to be in poor condition.

Loddon and Campaspe Shire councils are among those now returning to their road maintenance schedule, having been delayed by inclement weather.