Locals angry at NZTA’s u-turn
As the New Zealand Transport Agency reaches its ‘‘financial limits’’, it is putting the brakes on some work along the alternate State Highway 1 route between Picton and Canterbury, angering many residents living along its well-used path.
‘‘People up here are really pissed,’’ said Lake Rotoiti farmer Phil Borlase on Saturday as he pointed out stretches of partially completed work that look likely to be left unfinished this summer.
Many residents learnt about the NZTA plan via the community grapevine after contractors mentioned in a shop that they were about to finish up. Concerned residents sent a flurry of emails to West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O’Connor and also contacted Tasman District Council, both of whom are pushing for the work to be completed.
However, NZTA earthquake recovery manger Tim Crow said all planned work would be completed while some ‘‘extra work’’ at sites with a ‘‘lower safety risk’’ would be finished after winter.
The alternative route, which includes state highways 6, 63, 65 and 7 between Blenheim and Waipara, was the South Island’s main road between Christchurch and Picton after the Kaiko¯ura earthquake in November 2016 forced the closure of chunks of SH1. While SH1 reopened on December 15, some sections are still closed periodically including at night.
One 1.4 kilometres rough section of road along SH63, near the Korere-Tophouse Rd turnoff, runs by Phil Borlase’s property. It includes a culvert that is to be extended.
The large concrete extension pipe sits beside the road, ready to be lowered into place. Work preparing the site has been extensive including the creation of a dam on his property along with the installation of pipes under the road and the development of a sediment trap to direct the water away from the spot. Pumps were set up to remove any water that managed to seep through so the culvert could be cleared and site dug out to make way for the extension.
Now, the plug has been pulled on the job, the pumps have been removed and the extension pipe looks likely to remain beside the road. ‘‘It’s just going to sit there.’’ He said he believed about two days’ work remained to prepare the site for the extension and was annoyed the project had been put on hold so close to completion. Contractors would soon remediate his land.
If the pipe was put into place before that remediation, the contractors would not need to access his property again, Phil Borlase said.
However, ‘‘if they come back, they’re not doing it on my side of the fence,’’ he added. ‘‘I’ve told them they’ve got an opportunity to do it – do it.’’
As well as the culvert extension, he said other planned work put on hold included shape correction, widening and an overlay on parts of the deteriorated highway.
‘‘The road through here, they’ve had people potholing regularly just to maintain it,’’ he said. ‘‘The road is ... disastrous; it’s as rough as guts. You wanna come down there in a truck, you get chucked around; it’s bloody terrible.’’
Volunteer firefighter Russell Ferens agreed. ‘‘The fire appliance is bounced all over the place.’’
Ferens said he was worried about the coming winter, fearing an increase in crashes.
‘‘The road just came apart last winter,’’ he said. ‘‘ We were up there regularly for car accidents.’’
An area of particular concern to Ferens, Phil and many other people in the community was a narrow piece of road with a high camber over a culvert, a few hundred metres from the KorereTophouse Rd turnoff.
Large vehicles had to move to the centre of the road to fit while trucks with trailers were particularly vulnerable.
‘‘The rear axel actually comes off the road,’’ Ferens said.
Phil Borlase called the spot ‘‘an accident waiting to happen’’. He said the community had an assurance work on the site would be completed before Christmas, then it was pushed back to Februaryearly March. No work is apparent at the site.
Lakes-Murchison Ward councillor Stuart Bryant said the council wanted the whole 1.4km section finished.
‘‘We’re lobbying NZTA and NCTIR [North Canterbury Transport Infrastructure Recovery],’’ Bryant said. ‘‘It is a little bit surprising that they started these projects and then realised ‘we haven’t got enough funding’, it seems odd.’’
On the almost-complete culvert extension outside Phil Borlase’s property, Bryant said he would expect that to be finished at least.
‘‘I think, it’s laxness on the part of NZTA and NCTIR – both of them should actually be performing and getting this done.’’
Engineering services manager Richard Kirby said he spoke to NZTA after ‘‘feedback’’ from residents last week about the agency’s plan to stop some work.
‘‘NZTA indicated to us that they had reached the limit of their funding that was allocated to that alternative route,’’ Kirby told councillors. ‘‘They had a $65 million programme ... and $40m of that has been spent in the Tasman district ... but SH1 is open and they’ve hit their financial limits.’’
Kirby told councillors NZTA was going to ‘‘defer some of the major works that they had hoped and planned to do’’.
However, Crow said no major works were being postponed
‘‘As extra work is required to maintain the route with higher traffic volumes still using it and because sealing work needs to be carried out while the road temperature is warm, work on some sites with a lower safety risk will be completed in the coming summer season – from October, 2018,’’ he said, adding that included ‘‘Mr Borlase’s culvert’’.