Victoria is a national leader in ensuring heavy vehicles, including stock crates, are issued with movement permits as quickly as possible.
Maps issued by the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) show only three Victorian rural councils were taking more than a fortnight to issue the permits.
The NHVR’s John Gilbert said “heat maps” - showing the time it took to issue permits – indicated nearly half Victoria’s rural councils were receiving more than 50 requests, every month.
But only three councils, Hepburn, Murrindindi and Alpine, were taking the longest lead time, up to 28 days, to issue permits.
“Victoria is very, very good – that is purely down to VicRoads and the NSVR working with local governments,” Mr Gilbert said.
NHVR director Peter Caprioli said the maps would help provide local government to work with adjoining councils, to locate where improvements could be made to the road network.
“Jurisdictions and local government associations will be able to use these maps to identify possible infrastructure requirements for their local area,” Mr Caprioli said.
Blockages were occurring due to road pavement conditions and maintenance infrastructure issues.
Mr Gilbert said council officers had to go out and assess infrastructure such as bridges, if they had not been used for some time, to ensure they were safe.
“We get a request from an applicant through the road manager – either VicRoads or the council – and they come back to us.”
Murrindindi shire infrastructure and development services manager Elaine Wyatt said applications were processed, using the resources available to it as a small rural council.
She said the council processed 150 applications for higher mass limit and oversize loads in 2015.
“It should be noted that after initial implementation, council has made a number of system improvements over the last year, which is borne out by the statistics for October – December 2015, where the response times are five to 16 calendar days,” Ms Wyatt said.
“This improvement is bringing us into line with processing times for larger councils, with greater resources at their disposal.”
She said the council had also been advised an on line processing system was being proposed by the NHVR, which would further streamline the process.
And a Hepburn shire manager said around a quarter of permits were issued for general freight and livestock crates.
Infrastructure general manager Bruce Lucas said all referrals for B-doubles or higher mass vehicle movements received from the NHVR were required to be referred to a formal council meeting.
“By the time the referral is received, assessed and slotted into the agenda timetable/cycle it can take up to 4 weeks plus,” Mr Lucas said.
“The types of referrals received include transportation of quarried materials (40per cent), logging (36pc) and other (24pc), which includes for example general freight or livestock.”
Victorian Farmers Federation grains group president Brett Hosking agreed the involvement of VicRoads had eased the system.
“We are pretty well served – one that was continually coming up from growers was that they were having difficulty with the permit system,” Mr Hosking said.
“It’s now far better, now VicRoads plays a role.”
He said growers were concerned about the issuing of permits going back to the NHVR.
“It failed abysmally once, if it goes back to the NSVR, we need to ensure we have a system that is better.”
