Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson called on his own government to get started on the project in this year's budget.

"What I want is money to be able to do a feasibility study to look at what needs to be done to upgrade Port Stephens Cutting," he said.

The local, council-administered, road is Tamworth's most direct route to the coast, and is an important route for both tourists and freight.

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But a six-kilometre section is in a poor state, with four or five narrow "pinch points" and barely enough tarmac for two lanes of traffic. It's been badly maintained for years. Mr Anderson called for funding for an upgrade as early as 2016, to no avail.

"There's a tourism element to it as well as a commercial element. It's an important route. When it's not available to be used, when it's closed, or there's a problem it's a long way around. It does need to be upgraded and we do need to make it safe, so I'm happy to keep pushing," he said.

"It's been something people have been asking me to chase up for them and I'm very happy to do it."

Tamworth Regional Council currently administers the road, but wants to hand it back to the state government to run.

Tamworth Mayor Col Murray said the road "comes up in dispatches a lot with members of the community" and is "not as safe as it could be" but a proper upgrade would cost more than the council could afford on its own".

"Council certainly has it on its priority list, it's not at the top of the priority list, but it is an important upgrade that we need to have and it will cost many, many, many millions of dollars to complete that works," he said.

He estimated the upgrade could cost in excess of $20 million to make it safe and b-double compliant.

Mr Anderson said he wasn't sure how much a full upgrade would cost, but it's time to find out.

"I don't know whether it's $10m, $20m, $30m, I don't know," he said.

"What I do want to do is actually put some rigour around that number. And say let's do some work on it and say what is it going to cost to get this work done and then start planning. We might not be able to do it all in year one, or year two or year three but at least if we start that work then we can continue on."

The Tamworth MP is actively lobbying Minister for Rural Roads Paul Toole for either a specific budget allocation or just an announcement of a funding allocation.

"If it's in the budget, or if it's an allocation of funds, it really doesn't bother me where he gets it from but I would really like him to find some money," he said.

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I've been told by council that this is one of the roads they're looking to hand back to the state government when that road program comes into effect. I'm trying to get ahead of the game here, and say okay if they're going to hand the road back why don't I start work on it to try to see what I can do to get some funding for it now."

He said he'd be happy to back any council application for an upgrade of the road.

The state budget will be announced on June 22.

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