Our network of roads and bridges goes over unstable and highly erodible land that’s prone to slips and dropouts making it fragile. Ongoing storms and more frequent flooding have magnified existing damage and without significant investment will remain challenging.
We need to make sure that the network connects Tairāwhiti safely, but we also need to look at the affordability of what we do now, and how we will do it in the future.
Our challenges
Our road maintenance and construction budget has been stretched due to multiple storms, heavy freight and rising costs of fuel and materials.
We know potholes are an issue but the reality is there’s not enough money to fix them all - to do that rates would need to increase by a further 16%.
We know that’s unafordable so we’re reviewing our extensive 1899km roading network, to see where we need to build stronger roads, where to pull back and where to change the levels of service. This may mean we transition to unsealed roads in some areas.
What we can achieve in 3 years
Our maintenance is behind schedule as we’ve had to reprioritise our resources and funding to reopen and repair roads following multiple storm events.
The maintenance programme will be done alongside the huge amount of Cyclone Gabrielle work across the network.
Maintenance of our roading network includes:
- chip seal – 879km sealed roads
- metalling and grading – 1020km unsealed roads
- mowing and vegetation control – 1,899km roads
- fixing potholes – 887 roads
- roadside drains
- streetlights - 3703
- footpaths and footbridges – 263km
- bridges - 413
- shared pathways – 10.9km
Our roads - your options
Our preferred option - to maintain our existing budget to meet rising costs of inflation.
This will give us a budget of $84m over 3 years but road maintenance will continue to be challenging.
Rates increase 3.7% - impact on debt $0
- We won’t be able to maintain some roads, but we'll prioritise school bus and freight routes for stock trucks etc.
- We'll plan and model for a resilient, safe and affordable network.
- We'll continue with staged reinstatement of cyclone-damaged roads and bridges over 5 years.
- Tauwhareparae Road will be reopened.
If you want us to spend more, do more - this will give us a budget of $125m over 3 years
Rates increase 19.7% - impact on debt $6.3m
As well as the work listed above, we'll be able to increase our level of service on fixing potholes, maintaining roads and clearing drains.
