National neglects local roads to pay for motorways

Southern ratepayers resent their local roading budgets being cut so the Government can pour billions of dollars into the Roads of National Significance, says Labour’s Transport Spokesperson Phil Twyford.

The Labour MP has just completed a road trip of councils in the southern South Island and says there is a great deal of frustration that budgets for local roads are flat-lining for the second three-year period.

Phil Twyford visited Southland, Dunedin, Clutha, Gore, Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes, talking with councils, Federated Farmers and community groups.

“When you take inflation and steeply rising costs for bitumen into account, a flat-lining budget means a real cut. The councils I spoke to have had to reduce their local roads budgets by up to $8 million over three years.  All five councils confirmed to me they have had to cut back plans and budgets for road work.

“Central Otago, for example, has 1850km of local roads, 163 bridges and little more than 10,000 ratepayers. It has been forced to cut its budget by $1.4 m or 12% and would have to fund an extra $900,000 to maintain roads at current levels.

“In districts like Southland and Clutha, with massive networks of local roads and a small population of ratepayers this is putting huge pressure on those councils. They either have to cut back on road maintenance, or ask their cash-strapped ratepayers to pay more.

“It is ironic the Government is expecting these councils to pay more for local roads at the same time as it is telling councils to reduce their spending and debt.

“The Mayors I spoke to are all very aware that National is running down local roads so it can continue to pour billions of dollars into the Roads of National Significance. They resent it. It is bad asset management and it is unfair.

“The effect of spending $12 billion on the Roads of National Significance is plain to see. It is crowding out all the other parts of the transport budget – KiwiRail laying off 200 workers, public transport projects slashed, and now six years of deferred maintenance on local roads.

“One Mayor told me National’s Clutha-Southland MP Bill English had told the community one particular road project in the district would not get funded for some years because the Roads of National Significance took precedence.

“Invercargill MP Eric Roy recently told the Southland Times local roads would take a back seat until the RONS ‘were fixed.’

“While National trumpets the economic growth it hopes will come from its new motorways, in rural New Zealand milk tankers and forestry trucks have to travel hundreds of miles out of their way to detour around bridges that are unsafe for them because the Council cannot afford to fix them.

“The rationale for the RoNS was economic growth but as the southern Mayors point out, their districts produce a large share of the country’s economic wealth.

“New Zealand’s export supply chain starts at the farm gate. National is running down the country’s network of local roads so it can fund urban motorway projects some of which are gold-plated and all of which are duplicate routes.

“Even the Road Transport Forum’s Ken Shirley, who speaks for the trucking industry, says ‘the RONs programme appears to be absorbing all the investment funding in the land transport fund leading to inadequate money for renewal and upgrading of other state highways and local roads.’

“The Road Transport Forum has been one of the staunchest supporters of National’s motorway-building binge. This must surely be a sign that National is becoming increasingly isolated on this issue,” said Phil Twyford.