MELFORT — It’s taken almost a decade, but the province is about to fulfil its promise to rehab the service roads in the south end of Melfort at a cost of $1.4 million.
In 2009, the city and the province made an agreement through the Urban Highway Connector Program where the city would take control of the highways running through town from the provincial government and the province would provide an annual maintenance grant.
Before the province turned over the roads to the city, it was supposed to upgrade the roads to like-new condition. In the case of the three service roads, located on both sides of Highway #3 starting from the golf course and continuing south to the farm implement dealers just after the highway turns into Highway #6, the province was to pay 100 per cent of the cost of the upgrade.
“They’re actually getting around to what they should have done before they handed those roads to us,” said Rick Lang, Melfort’s mayor.
Lang said after years of lobbying and many false starts, it was a pleasant surprise the project will be funded. This time around, a written agreement has been signed confirming it will happen.
For the last nine years, the city has been in an awkward situation where the road has been deteriorating but doing any repairs meant that it would be spending money to do work the province committed to do.
“Up until now, we have been doing some maintenance on it that, in my mind, we should have never had to do because it should have been rehabbed from Day 1,” Lang said. “We’ve been throwing some dollars into patching it just to make it suitable.”
While the service roads have been dealt with, there’s still work that needs to be done on Highway #3 – called Saskatchewan Drive within the city.
“If we ever get approved for that, the ministry will pay 75 per cent and we’ll pay 25 per cent,” Lang said.
As for the other outstanding promise the government has made to the city, a promise of new diagnostic equipment in the hospital made in 2010, Lang said he’s heard no news but he’s continuing to lobby the province for action.
