Tamworth roads: plan to upgrade 15,000 kilometres of regional road just robbing Peter to pay Paul: Labor

The promise, a key commitment at the last state election, would have reversed cost shifting from state to cash-strapped local governments. It would also have meant major upgrades to notoriously dodgy roads like the Werris Creek and Kempsey Roads.

Tamworth Regional Council manages more roads than any other in NSW and it's long been assumed it would be one of the larger beneficiaries of the plan.

But Labor Shadow Minister for Rural Roads Mick Veitch said new documents released to parliament this week show the road transfer may not happen at all.

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Alternatively it could come at the expense of other road upgrades.

"The document says there's an almost certain likelihood that the 15,000 kilometre road classification process will fall over due to insufficient funding," he said.

The government's Asset Management plan 2020-21 to 2029-30 shows the commitment to take over rural roads is based on the "assumption" that a grant issued to councils to maintain the roads would be clawed back.

Mr Veitch said that's a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

"These block and repair grants are actually critical to councils because this is how they underpin how they pay for their workforce," he said.

"If you start taking this money off councils who are in the main already cash-strapped, I just think it's a real risk for our local jobs."

He also said the process was too slow, with just 2000 kilometres of roads to be handed back a year.

The plan shows the state government would be assuming over $200 million in extra maintenance costs by 2028.

In January the state government formed a panel to determine which roads to annex back to the state government.

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A spokesperson for the Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Paul Toole said the process is "lengthy and complicated, which means that road transfers may happen over several years".

"The Government understands councils' funding concerns and has specifically requested the panel consider funding implications of any transfers, including working to ensure local road maintenance jobs are maintained," they said.

Tamworth Regional Council Manager for Infrastructure and Works Murray Russell said they didn't expect the policy to have much of a financial impact locally either way.

"For a council like Tamworth we have a 3000 kilometre road network of which the regional roads network is less than 10 per cent of that," he said.

"If the state government takes the management of those roads back we've still yet to see exactly how the maintenance of those roads would actually happen."

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