Battling to stop chip seal on their street

Residents on an Alfriston road are battling authorities over their street being resealed.

But instead of campaigning to get the work done, the Polo Prince Drive residents are trying to avoid having chip seal on their street.

Dennis Green describes the stone and tar combination as ‘‘cheap’’ and ‘‘horrible’’.

‘‘This will be forever breaking up after they’ve done it ... all the residents don’t want it done,’’ he says.

The 40-odd residents of the noexit street have been back-andforth with Auckland Transport and the Manurewa Local Board since November.

The road was completed in the late 1990s and has not been resealed since.

‘‘It makes no sense as it’s a noexit street, just residents use it. Save ratepayers some money, we don’t want this.’’

In feedback to Auckland Transport, residents cited chip seal breaking up on nearby Mill Road and Airfield Road.

Green says the chip seal would take time to bed in and loose stones would cause a mess.

The work got underway after Waitangi weekend and lasted for about a week.

Manurewa Local Board chair Angela Dalton is also questioning other chip seal jobs across the area.

‘‘I’ve got a few questions in with them, I want them to prove to me they need resealing; evidence that the cracks require fixing,’’ she says.

‘‘The savings they have to make are from decisions by pre- vious governing bodies. Billions going into the City Rail Link mean local roads miss out.’’

Auckland Transport media spokesman Mark Hannan says the road needs resurfacing to keep it waterproof.

The resurfacing will also protect the underlying road pave- ment and give good skid resistance, he says.

Hannan says its policy is for asphalt to be used if more than 10,000 cars use the road a day.

Cul-de-sacs and round-a-bouts are also sealed with asphalt.

‘‘Because Polo Prince Drive has low traffic volumes and low speeds a finer grade chip seal will be used ... the new chip seal will be swept frequently,’’ he says.

The annual chip seal budget is $16 million. Per square metre, chip seal costs $7 with asphalt costing $30.

NZ Transport Agency covers half of chip seal costs.