Rural roads around the southeast are seeing road bans come into focus as warmer temperatures are coming to the area.

That includes the RM of Benson, which has a road ban in effect for all roads that targets heavier vehicles.

Reeve for the RM of Benson Ken Wallewein says they've had to put in a good bit of work so far this year.

"This year is an abnormal year and just last week we were up in Regina at the SARM Provincial Convention through all our RMs and chatting with people from around the province. Mostly from the South, because road bans are on in the South, they're not on in the North yet, but everybody's saying the same thing, that the roads appear to be softer and are being damaged more than what people can remember for a lot of years."

The awful roads are the consequence of a rainy fall back in 2023, says Wallewein.

"We had a fair amount of rain very late in the fall, the ground froze up wet and it just seems like when it warmed up in February, already we were noticing issues with roads that in the past hadn't really caused as much of a problem. But this year they got soft really fast and there were deep ruts being cut in them and then we were able to get them kind of fixed back up again and then it froze and now we're back into the freeze-thaw cycle that March usually is."

Work on the roads can be slow as that has to be done when conditions are cold enough that workers aren't doing more damage.

"We work on them whenever road conditions will allow, which is usually in the morning for a period of time until it gets too warm and the roads get too soft where the graters are then sinking in and you're levelling with the blade and the wheels in the back are cutting a rut just as deep as what you just filled in," said Wallewein, "So then at that point, we have to stop for that day and go back out early next morning.

Wallewein says he expects the mess to be cleaned up this spring with hopefully little in the way of permanent damage.

"It won't take until summer. I mean, we'll be working on them as road conditions allow. We hope that we don't have too much permanent damage, but only time will tell because this year is not what we would normally see, we're seeing more damage this year than what we normally see in the spring."