East West Link ordered back to starting blocks
The East West Link road project in Auckland has more hurdles to overcome, with the release of a Supreme Court decision.
The court decided in favour of Forest and Bird, which appealed how the law had been applied when Resource Management Act (RMA) approvals were granted for the project.
The link is a proposed four-lane, arterial road to connect State Highway 20 in Onehunga with SH1 in Penrose.
It would run from Māngere Bridge, along the shore of the Manukau Harbour, through an area known as the Māngere Inlet, and then head north-east to join the motorway.
The East West Link is on the current Government’s priority list of National Roads of Significance (RONS).
However, the proposal’s been around since the previous National government championed it in 2014, but was put on ice for funding by the Labour government in 2017.
In 2018, it was granted RMA approvals to go ahead, and it’s those decisions that were challenged in the High Court, and now the Supreme Court.
In its current design, the road will go through a unique lava flow habitat that is the last stronghold for several indigenous volcanic plants, and in an area that is defined a Significant Ecological Area in the Auckland Unitary Plan.
It will also disturb coastal habitat used by rare birds.
The project was originally estimated to cost between $1.25 billion and $1.85b, but is being re-evaluated.
The road is considered a key connecting route for Auckland.
The court found that it would be difficult for a significant infrastructure project to go ahead when it has adverse effects on indigenous biodiversity in a protected area.
The Supreme Court has ordered that the board Of inquiry that granted RMA approvals for the project go back and apply correct law to the facts they considered for those approvals.
New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi is steering the project.
Forest and Bird (Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand) and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Whai Maia Ltd appealed the RMA decisions in the High Court. Those appeals were dismissed, but Forest and Bird took its appeal to the Supreme Court.
Forest and Bird general counsel Peter Anderson said the future of the project, as it stands, was uncertain at best.
Anderson said the decision showed that areas have to be protected when they are provided for in planning documents.
“It’s really good news for the protected areas, those things are safer today than they were yesterday,” he said.
The project could potentially go through the coming fast-track process, “but it would be totally inappropriate to fast track it”.