Western Australia's Opposition transport spokesperson wants to ease the strain for councils facing big road repair bills.

Labor's Ken Travers has called for a review into regional road funding.

He says rural roads are increasingly used as freight routes, but local governments do not have the resources to fix the increased wear-and-tear.

Manjimup Shire president Wade DeCampo has expressed the same concern, saying freight roads were being overlooked in state funding decisions.

Mr Travers said something must be done.

“Local roads are being used as effectively state roads and on top of that ... the economy is growing and there is going to be increasing demand on those secondary roads, so yes I think we need to be comprehensively looking at it,” he said.

“There's clearly got to be a partnership between state government and local governments.”