The weekend is here, and it is nice to finally see some sunshine. Nearly 31mm has fallen at Lismore airport since Wednesday, and the most asked question around town was and still is, "When is this rain going to stop?"

With a water table already high, Lismore's sporting fields have had to close for matches several times this season. Even the Lismore golf course had to close the course for social play and competition on Thursday and today. The rain's impact on our daily lives is undeniable.

The other noticeable effect of the rain is the return of the pesky potholes that plagued us so much during 2022.

To understand the current road network issues better, the Lismore App spoke to Lismore City Council's new head of Roads and Quarry Josh Smith and Chief Operating Officer Brendan Logan.

You have not been wrong in thinking that the number of potholes has increased. Council has seen a 37% rise in reported potholes in the same period last year.

The consistent rain presents its own challenges as council's road crew cannot get out to fix the potholes. In fact, council road crew has been operating 39% less than the same period last year. So, just when council thought it was making solid progress through its enormous road network flood repair workload, the brakes have been put on.

Josh Smith is new in his role and has been tasked with making effective changes in the way Roads does business, including its maintenance program. Brendan Logan says we can't always blame the weather and that the results have not been good enough.

"We accept that it hasn't been good enough in a lot of areas. I've given Josh a mandate to deliver on change, to make sure we improve things for the community. I think in the past, we've had a well-intentioned, but very spread out, approach to maintenance where the whole maintenance team looks at the whole LGA (local government area). But we think we can get a bit smarter and look at it from the precinct or geographical approach and assign particular people to particular areas so they can focus on those. And I think, too, there's a real opportunity to make sure our resources are set up in a way that allows us to provide better service levels to those highly used roads."

"We have that traffic in from Bangalow, we have the traffic in from Ballina, and we have that traffic in from Casino. That's the bulk of the 37,000 car movements we have in and out of Lismore every day. So we absolutely need to make sure we provide better service levels to those heavily used roads while also making sure there is a genuine service level identification of issues on those roads that aren't as heavily used."

"We want to make sure our service levels improve, so I will certainly put a lot of constructive pressure on Josh and give him the mandate to do whatever he needs to to make sure those those service levels improve."

Mr Logan said that, generally, there is not a work ethic issue with the road team, but changes need to be made in management.

 "I think we have to look at it. How can we realign those resources to be more effective? And that's that's the mandate I've given Josh. Make sure you realign those resources. You've got to make sure they're effective."

"Josh is a very, very talented and proactive leader. I'm not envisaging this is something that's going to take a long time. I've asked him for immediate action. Frankly, I said, have a good look at it, and get a bit bold. Make some decisions to realign and improve quickly. I don't want this to be a slow burn."

Josh Smith told the Lismore App, "I suppose we're embarking on a bit of a rebirth of the roads department. Those are really critical pillars for me to get right. Our technical review on how we're doing pavement and sealing, is that the industry standard? Is that the best engineering option available? So we'll do a full technical review of that, and our process I suppose, in our selection of that."

"The second one is setting a new maintenance strategy. We're very reactive at the moment. We can't do everything. But in terms of just being absolutely sure that with what money we do have, we are spending best value for money option to an agreed strategy. I think that's where we can improve."

"I'll make sure I'm talking to other councils to see how other people are doing it and just benchmarking ourselves against who's doing this really well."

In 2023, the Lismore App reported on road complete road resurfacing on Union Street, South Lismore and Richmond Hill Road, Richmond Hill. How are they faring after the recent wet weather?

"Pretty well, pretty well. And look, the pothole situation is a bit of a mystery to me. Take Eltham Road, for example. We had huge potholes develop there a couple of months ago during a week of dry weather. We don't know what caused that. It's good on Wednesday then it's bad on Thursday,.

"But look, the newer roads, they're holding up fine. But there will come a time when they don't and that's the point of realigning things now so we can provide those better service levels."

"I don't want to rely on weather maps and say, Oh, look, we're just in a pickle, we need to wait for it to clear. I think it's our job to find solutions to that and still try and provide that service level despite those constraints that are in front of us."

For those that haven't been on the Nimbin Road for a while, the second landslip area, known as 4k, has also been completed and it is two-way traffic once again as you approach the Nimbin township thanks to the good work of the team at CMC. CMC have been part of the Nimbin community for the last two years.

(Photo: CMC)

Council's landslip attention now moves to Blue Knob Road.