Gorge link broken by neglect

The lack of a contingency plan for a long term Manawatu Gorge closure has a commentator claiming the country’s highway bosses were asleep at the wheel.

Massey University environment and planning lecturer Christine Cheyne has condemned the NZ Transport Agency and the Government for the situation Ashhurst residents have found themselves in since the gorge closed.

Cheyne, a local government commentator and Horizons Regional Council transport committee member, said she was horrified by some of the issues raised at a meeting between the transport agency and the Ashhurst community on Wednesday.

Complaints of noise, safety, vibration, and trucks taking wrong turns and getting lost could all have been prevented through better planning, she said.

Cheyne said there had been plenty of time since the 14-month 2011-12 gorge closure to prepare for it happening again.

‘‘Their whole response has been very belated.

‘‘A planning organisation should have had contingency plans in place.’’

Instead, the gorge’s closure in April following a slip had caught authorities unprepared. Then in July, it was signalled the closure could be forever.

The only alternative route from the west was through Ashhurst’s residential streets and over the Saddle Rd, neither of which were designed to carry ever–increasing volumes of heavy traffic.

Transport agency highway manager Ross I’anson told the Ashhurst gathering an evaluation of long-term options after the 2011 slip identified upgrading the Saddle Rd as an alternative route as the best option.

But Cheyne said April’s closure found the upgrade incomplete, with some sections extremely unsafe, and improvements already starting to fail.

Urgent maintenance was underway but the situation was far worse than it was in 2011, and indicative of the Government’s neglect of the regions, she said.

More freight was being moved by road than during the earlier closure, and that change should have been factored in to plans.

Cheyne said her top concern was for the safety of Ashhurst residents, especially those on Salisbury St, which connects to the Saddle Rd.

‘‘The passionate pleas from Ashhurst residents for their safety and quality of life to be restored must be addressed.’’

She said noise and vibration problems were much worse on sealed local roads than they would have been if connecting routes had been upgraded with asphalt to state highway standards.

I’anson said the long–term solution would be for a route to bypass Ashhurst altogether, and work was underway to establish a short–term bypass.