Road Futures Strategy
Port Stephens Council manages an extensive road network of 790km, comprising regional roads, sealed and unsealed local roads, and gravel roads across sandy soils and flood-prone land that present ongoing maintenance challenges.
In recent years, severe weather events have accelerated deterioration across this network at a rate that has exceeded available funding.
Community feedback, through surveys, engagement and the 2024 Council election, has consistently identified road condition as one of the most significant issues facing Port Stephens residents.
The Roads Futures Strategy sets out Council's long-term approach to planning, maintaining and funding the road network, with the aim of achieving the best possible outcomes for the community as pressures on the asset continue to grow.
Download the Road Futures Strategy (PDF 205 KB).
We have drop in sessions scheduled where you can ask questions about the draft strategy.
| Raymond Terrace Bowling Club | Thursday 13 August | 5pm to 7pm |
| Medowie Community Centre | Tuesday 18 August | 10:30am to 12:30pm |
| Soldiers Point Bowling Club | Thursday 20 August | 5pm to 7pm |
FAQs
Safe and reliable roads are a key priority for both Council and the community. The draft Road Futures Strategy sets out a practical plan to optimise how Council plans, maintains, constructs, and funds our roads to ensure the best value and outcomes for our community.
We’ve developed a draft Road Futures Strategy to help guide our roads maintenance and renewal into the future. It highlights current initiatives that are working well and also opportunities for improvement. This is a long-term strategy to expand our road maintenance and focuses on improvement over a longer period of time. Although impacts won’t be visible immediately, it will guide us to deliver the greatest benefits to residents, business, and visitors, improving the liveability of our place in the future.
The strategy reviews current road management practices to review accountability, efficiency, and performance outcomes, and guide Council’s future road maintenance and funding. It was developed following a 9 December 2025 Notice of Motion.
The draft Road Futures Strategy builds on the work Council has been doing as part of the Roads Acceleration Program (RAP). The RAP is Council's targeted program to tackle our roadwork backlog by moving away from temporary pothole patching and focusing on rebuilding roads the right way with stronger foundations and better drainage. Our Roads Acceleration Program will invest over $29 million into road upgrades and maintenance over three years, and the Road Futures Strategy acts as the long-term vision to guide future investment in our road network.
Maintaining our extensive network of more than 790kms is becoming increasingly challenging as assets age, costs rise, and weather events place additional pressure on our roads. The extended rain period along the east coast of Australia leading up to 2025 resulted in many of Council’s road pavements rapidly deteriorating. This led to a failed road surface, additional costs in reactive maintenance, and a dissatisfied community. Furthermore, parts of our network were constructed many decades ago on sandy soils and flood-prone land, creating ongoing challenges for maintenance and renewal.
We monitor road conditions using a combination of visual inspections, specialised equipment, laser-based condition assessments, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. These assessments identify issues including pavement roughness, rutting, cracking, surface condition, and seal performance. The results are used to calculate a Pavement Condition Index (PCI), where a higher PCI denotes a better road pavement. Pavement management modelling was undertaken to predict the road pavement future condition PCI against the amount of funds allocated to the road maintenance program.
Our annual Community Satisfaction Survey aims to understand how satisfied our residents are with the services, facilities and infrastructure provided by Council. Like many Councils across Australia, road conditions are the greatest area of dissatisfaction, at 79% in 2025.
The Port Stephens Liveability Index measures the quality of life experienced by residents and visitors, with road improvements receiving just under 550 comments. One of the key factors influencing liveability is evidence of public investment, particularly in infrastructure that people use every day. The conditions of our roads contribute significantly to how people experience Port Stephens and their overall satisfaction with their place.
If we keep funding our roads at current levels, they will continue to deteriorate, significantly lowering the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) over the next 10 years. We cannot rely on traditional funding alone if we’re to stop our roads from deteriorating over the next decade.
We have two funding options to improve our road network and deliver the greatest benefit to residents, businesses, and visitors, and aim to raise the PCI for these roads, improving liveability in Port Stephens.
Both options prioritise sub-arterial and collector roads, which are the main links connecting towns and villages across Port Stephens and connecting to Maitland and Newcastle. Local roads will continue to receive current service levels, and will be prioritised by risk, with busier and higher risk routes addressed first.
To learn more about the strategy, visit our News page.