Rural city of Wangaratta councillors endorsed the draft Road Management Plan (RMP) for adoption at September’s council meeting following a consultation process over the previous months.

Following consideration of the draft RMP at the July council meeting, community submissions were invited.

At the beginning of this engagement period, council officers produced short videos to develop understanding in the community of council’s road management responsibilities, which were shared through council’s social media platforms.

These videos provided clarity of the responsibilities of main roads and give some context as to how council manages road defects.

A connect Wangaratta website was setup to provide the community an opportunity to view the draft road management plan, make a submission and complete a survey.

There were 271 visits to the website during the exhibition period, with 10 people making a submission.

Two drop-in sessions were held over the engagement period, one in Wangaratta and one in Cheshunt.

Council had approximately 50 separate pieces of feedback during these sessions offered the opportunity during this period for community members to contact council officers and discuss the draft road management plan.

One appointment was made for a speed zone request.

Due to the small number of survey responses, no discernible themes emerged.

Council officers have reviewed the feedback and submissions received on the RMP and believe no substantive changes to the draft document were required.

Director of community and infrastructure, Marcus Goonan, said it's clear that they need to continue working both internally at council and externally within the community to really bed down what the road management plan means and how it works.

"Everyone wants to see better maintenance on their roads, that's just a fact of life," he said.

"Unfortunately the road management plan, even though it does look like it spells that out, doesn't dictate how we do maintenance.

"Essentially the road management plan is that agreement between council and the community on what the maximum defect that the community or council will take on board before making a fix.

"So this is very much the end of the line if you like.

"We would like to think that our maintenance standards make sure that we don't end up needing to refer to the road management plan, but the reality is the document needs to be there."

Cr Dave Fuller moved to adopt the RMP without further amendment, this was seconded by Cr Tania Maxwell.

Cr Maxwell encouraged everyone to continue providing feedback.

"If community don't engage in services like this or come and talk to us about their issues, it's very difficult for us to to learn from and understand what you're seeing in the community," she said.