The Municipality of West-Interlake is addressing concerns over road conditions in the municipality. Council heard from a delegation made up of Ward 1 residents this week, who were expressing their dissatisfaction with the road conditions in their area. Reeve Randy Helgason says it's the municipality's duty to address those concerns to help alleviate the concerns of ratepayers, so they'll begin grading those roads soon.  

Reeve Randy Helgason

Helgason says like many other Manitoban municipalities, West-Interlake is also seeing terrible road conditions throughout the municipality. He says the poor conditions of the roads are quite surprising, given the conditions over the winter and spring.

"It impacted it. Considering the winter and how mild it was I didn't expect many issues with frost boils and black dirt coming up. This year was just horrendous in both wards."

Helgason estimates about a quarter of the municipality's roads are in need of work. He says they're grateful the group came to speak to the council, noting the presenters were very considerate when voicing their concerns. He says they're going to address the situation quickly. but are also looking to make improvements for the future.

"In the spring we're going to come up with a program to pull up some of the gravel that gets taken to the slope in the winter time when they're carrying snow, and try and get that back onto the roads. We're also going to be diligent with our gravel program, putting the gravel on the roads that need it."

He says the major concern for the group focused on the region's farmers, who had challenges getting onto the damaged roads. Helgason says they had valid concerns, and all of council agreed they needed to make improvements.