Support for Rosebank Peninsula option for State Highway 20

Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey says that speeding up completion of the Western Ring Road is essential and therefore his council supports a route through the Rosebank Peninsula.

He is responding to a government decision to drop plans for a tunnel option, through Waterview.

“In these economic times it is a matter of cutting the cloth - the important thing is that this important link is completed one way or another,” he says.

“We have to get the State Highway completed and this means we have to change direction for the most money-efficient and time-efficient option.”

In 2003, Waitakere City resolved that: “The Waitakere City Council strongly prefers the Rosebank option to the Waterview option for the extension of State Highway 20 to State Highway 16.”

Mayor Harvey says Waitakere only changed its mind on the issue because it was told that the Waterview option would get built much sooner.

” What we’ve seen in the past few years is a lot of dicking around and no action,” he says. “Hopefully, with the government’s announcement, things can get moving.”

After consulting in 2006 with Transit (the government’s previous roading authority) and Auckland City Council, Waitakere resolved: “While the Rosebank option may provide greater local benefits to Waitakere City, it is necessary to take into account the risk that the project would not proceed within the next ten years under the Rosebank option and the significant impacts of each option on Auckland City and the region.”
Mayor Harvey commented: “We are seeing central government choose carefully which infrastructure projects will generate the most jobs into the long term. The Rosebank Peninsula option services a greater employment area and needs to be put back on the table.”