Top rating for council management in audit

Council scored the best possible overall rating for its management of the district’s paths, roads and cycle ways in a recent audit carried out by the NZ Transport Agency.

“The agency’s audit investment report shows our road network is well managed and in a stable condition,” assess and transport manager Glen O’Connor said. “The auditors found that our efforts to improve safety, such as our intersection upgrades, revised speed limits and safety campaigns, have been well designed and implemented.”

He said the report also commended the council for its strong emphasis on improving the quality of its transport data, which provides information on traffic volumes, safety and other important details about how our district’s roads are functioning.

“Transport data is becoming an increasingly important tool for local councils, who are using it to assess the performance of their transport assets and decide where future investment is needed most.

“We’ll be working on improving the coverage, quality and usability of our transport data to help us make better informed and more cost effective decisions in the future.”

He said the agency regularly audited local councils to ensure they are using central government funding effectively to keep their communities’ roads, footpaths and other transport assets in good shape.

The agency typically contributes about 51 per cent to council’s land transport costs each year — roughly $5.5m per annum.

“We put a lot of time and effort into keeping our transport networks safe and up to standard, whether it’s repairing our roads, revising our speed limits, making our intersections safer or expanding our network of shared pathways.

“We’ll be taking NZTA’s findings into consideration as we get on with our busy programme of work over the next year.”