“Streamlining” management from 13 authorities to one could help the Great Ocean Road as it struggles with tourist demand, according to a municipal alliance body.
The board of G21 Geelong Region Alliance this week backed a management shakeup while adding maintenance and upgrading of the road to G21’s list of “priority projects”.
The road’s infrastructure issues have made headlines since landslips closed sections of the road to traffic following heavy rain last year.
A recent summit at Lorne identified infrastructure deficiencies as the road’s most pressing issue. Participants extended their complaints to a shortage of toilets that forced tourists to relieve themselves in bushes at Eastern View’s Great Ocean Road Arch.
G21 cited the road’s management structure comprising separate councils, government departments and a foreshore committee in its call for reform.
State Government should consider slashing the structure to a single authority, G21 chief Elaine Carbines said.
“There is a need to simplify and better co-ordinate management arrangements, possibly through an over-sighting body covering the length of the road,” she said.
Ms Carbines wanted federal and state governments to expand their funding commitments of $153 million since 2013 to improve infrastructure along the road.
The route’s 7 million tourists annually – “more than the Great Barrier Reef” – brought “significant costs and challenges”, she said.
“We need federal and state government commitment to ongoing long-term funding.
“Private and public tourism amenities are needed to further enhance (the road’s) economic potential and raising it to priority status will help ensure that governments are kept sharply aware of the need.”
G21 describes itself as “the central, combined voice in championing the needs of its five member municipalities and their communities to federal and state governments and authorities”.
