Bluff highway ‘always the bridesmaid’ in road plans
The Invercargill to Bluff section of State Highway 1 “always seems to be the bridesmaid and never the bride” when it comes to priorities for roads of national significance, Invercargill’s deputy mayor says.
At a meeting of the Invercargill City Council’s infrastructure committee on Tuesday, deputy Tom Campbell criticised the lack of southern projects among the prioritised roads of national significance identified in the Government’s $20 billion draft policy statement on land transport that was announced on Monday.
He was particularly unhappy about a lack of emphasis on improving the long-lamented state of the road to Bluff, which he said had been in continually poor condition.
“We would all accept it’s in poor condition,” he said. “We, as a council, ought to respond in some way to that.”
While southerners tended to play nice in their advocacy, people in other parts of the country were benefiting from being “the squeaky wheel” on roading issues, Campbell said.
The committee agreed to have the council assemble a case for further investment in the Bluff highway, and to look for a united southern voice to champion it.
Council mana whenua representative Evelyn Cook said she didn’t understand how the road kept being ignored when it was an important lifeline for the community, and could represent “a risky situation” in the event of a state of emergency being declared.
Councillor Grant Dermody said the road was economically and socially important to the south, not just to Bluff and Invercargill residents.
A well-summarised case needed to be put together and promoted to NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi and the Government not only by the city council, but also by other southern local authorities and transport industry players ranging from the Bluff port company to HW Richardson Group, he said.
“Talk to them and they will tell you it’s not a safe road to drive on.”
Councillor Ria Bond said the way funding priorities were set pitted big projects against smaller ones.
The problem was not that “we’re not singing from our song sheet”, she said. Rather, the south had to address, effectively, how this project would be assessed against those in other areas.
The council’s infrastructure manager, Erin Moogan, said she understood from recent discussions with Waka Kotahi that work was planned within the next 12 months to raise the road in the area approaching the Invercargill estuary.
“But at this stage, that is the only work that they have programmed” along the highway, she said.