Pathways upgrade plan for Ashhurst
Ashhurst could be in line for a $491,000 programme of improvements to its shared pathways that lay the foundations for a future 10km off-road loop.
Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency has set up a $1 million recreational paths fund associated with its Te Ahu a Turanga highway construction project, and the city council intends to make an application.
Palmerston North City councillor Lorna Johnson described the fund as a sort of gesture of recognition for the inconvenience Ashhurst people in particular had put up with since the Manawatū Gorge road closed in 2017 and their streets became the secondary state highway to Woodville over the Saddle Rd.
The application would be for the costs of an improved path on the Ashhurst side of the Pohangina River from McCraes Bush along an area known as the Terrace to the Ashhurst Domain.
There was a separate programme in the council’s budget for a railway overbridge for pedestrians, cyclists and equestrians at Pembroke St.
That could also attract a Waka Kotahi subsidy, although the council might have to pay the additional costs of ensuring horses could use it.
Parks planner Aaron Phillips said the application would seek an additional $60,000 to investigate and design an extended ‘‘Three Bridges’’ loop.
That pathway would extend through Ashhurst, down the terrace, across the Saddle Rd bridge and back along the east side of the river to the new highway bridge over the Manawatū river, to Te piti/the Manawatū Gorge, and back across the Ashhurst bridge.
‘‘The Saddle Rd is going to look so different when the new highway is opened.’’
Councillor Brent Barrett
Phillips said the main obstacle to that plan was that there was currently no separation for non-vehicular road users on the Saddle Rd bridge, and it would take time and money to investigate safe solutions to that problem.
Councillor Brent Barrett said it made sense to take a staged approach to the bigger plan. ‘‘The Saddle Rd is going to look so different when the new highway is opened.’’ He said the council needed to ensure equestrians had places to ride, and said it was disappointing that as things stood, they would be excluded from using the shared cycle and pedestrian pathway alongside Te Ahu a Turanga.
Deputy mayor Aleisha Rutherford, who lives in Ashhurst, said the Waka Kotahi fund provided a great opportunity to begin the pathway.
Another issue stopping completion of a 40km-plus off-road route from western Palmerston North to Ashhurst and on to Woodville was the missing link of the Manawatū Riverside shared pathway.
Two-thirds of the route from Riverside Drive on the edge of Palmerston North’s urban area to the Ashhurst bridge remained incomplete as negotiations between the council and landowners for access to land needed alongside the river broke down.
The most recent quarterly report to councillors on the city’s catalyst projects was that staff were preparing a notice of requirement to designate the land necessary to complete the link.