Southland’s mayor says the district council will delay a decision to turn three sealed roads back into gravel roads as long as it can while it hopes for more funding from the central government.
Residents of Crooked, Waterloo and Wilanda Downs roads were awaiting the decision by the council, which had already been delayed.
Mayor Rob Scott said the roads were important but the council was short on funds for its roading programme, and had been lobbying central government.
“I’ve been talking until government right up to the Prime Minister late last year and I’m hoping they’re starting to listen, because the government has been talking about need to haves and this is a need to have for the whole country. If we don’t invest in our roads properly here it is going to have a detrimental impact,” he said.
He said Waterloo Rd in particular was well used in the community.
“That road has a few farms on it, it’s got a lot of logging activity currently happening which is actually the cause of the degradation of the road that’s got it into this state. It’s got school buses on it,” Scott said.
“It’s not about us asking for New Zealand to subsidise us, it’s actually asking for us to get the money that we generate on our roads, the income for the government that we generate on the fuel excise taxes to come back to Southland, it’s currently not.”
Community members met with Southland District Councillors on Monday night to discuss their concerns with the re-gravelling of the roads.
Resident Pete Turner, who used Waterloo Rd daily, said the community felt they had not been engaged with properly.
“The report the council did for their analysis of it it’s very one-sided it’s basically just on what the council issue is, there’s no effect that it has on ratepayers regarding dust for stock and the safety concerns on the road if it’s to be put back into gravel, that’s why Waterloo Road was put from gravel to seal,” he said.
“We’ve left it with council and hopefully they’ll continue to engage with us… there’s a lot of ratepayers up [Waterloo Road], a lot of farming up that road and it’s deteriorated rapidly over one of the wettest Springs we’ve ever had. It’s caught the council on the hop a little bit, but we’ve got to find a solution to this.”
The New Zealand Transport Agency has been approached for comment.
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