An age-friendly outlook

Speed limits and an age-friendly community were the main topics at the Kaitake Community Board meeting on Monday.

The board, which covers the north Taranaki towns of Omata, Oakura and Okato, passed all recommended motions at the meeting, including a commitment to become a World Health Organisation-accredited agefriendly community, and adopting new speed management guiding principles and commencing a district-wide speed limit review.

Lance Girling-Butcher, chairman of the Positive Ageing Trust, told the meeting that the Waikato District Council had already committed to become a World Health Organisation (WHO) accredited age-friendly community. ‘‘It seems as though this kind of strategy is taking off nationally.’’ ‘‘Anything we do to improve access or make people think of other people benefits everybody.’’

Meanwhile, the board agreed to adopting the speed limit principles, which would inform how speed limits are set so they match the appropriate speed for the road and the environment.

‘‘The system of management guidelines was developed by the NZTA to try and get some consistency so a road that looks like an 80k road in the New Plymouth district will look like an 80k road in the Manawatu¯ district or the Northland district or whatever,’’ councillor Harry Duynhoven said.

However, they were only agreeing to the process of looking at the speed limits, not any actual changes.

The district-wide review option would be quicker and increase road safety sooner rather than doing the project in clusters, councillor Roy Weaver said.