Living on a road to ruin

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There's a sign as you turn into Lawrence Road, writes resident Nick Launder. It reads ‘Slow down! You're wrecking your car and ruining our health.”

Actually, there is no such sign, but there should be. Let me tell you why.

Lawrence Road – and its partner in grime, Cames Road – forms the rat run when the Insley Street bridge is closed, which it has been, spasmodically, for the past many months. This means that traffic wishing to enter Mangawhai from the South via the usual Waitete Road link has to turn into Cames Road, then onto Lawrence (or Devich) before turning right onto the Kaiwaka-Mangawhai Road.

So, in effect, Lawrence and Cames roads form a significant, strategic bypass. And the possibility of Insley bridge issues going on for some while yet means the bypass role is an ongoing one. There are even rumours that this bridge will need to be totally replaced in the next 10 years.

 

Roads unsuitable
The problem is, this is a bypass that's been bypassed – by whatever authorities that should know better – in terms of repair, maintenance and suitable roadworthiness. Each of these roads is clearly unsuitable to handle such traffic loads, especially heavy loads and drivers unfamiliar with narrow, unsealed roads.

Despite a week of solid grading, rolling and watering as new base course was spread along Lawrence just before Christmas, this road currently resembles a corduroy of corrugations, some so deep it is feared that three sheep, two elderly pedestrians and a tractor have disappeared without trace in recent weeks.

These tragic happenings aside, the poor, pock-marked road surface is having an increasingly alarming impact on vehicles that travel the route and the residents whose properties lie beneath the perpetual dust cloud that envelopes their daily lives. Locals who embrace a suitably cautious approach to both speed and driving line fear for their vehicle's suspension.

Traction is a lost word as vehicles struggle to retain a controlled grip on the road – not just around (blind) corners but also along the few straights where the corrugations have a dramatic, deviating effect on even the most determined straight line.

 

Health issues
While some may enjoy watching this spectacle, locals rarely venture outside as the ongoing billows of dust and grit make breathing as much a challenge as it is an essential function. Roofs collect copious quantities of this same choking dust, resignedly waiting for the inevitable drought breaker to wash it into our thirsty water tanks. School kids waiting for their buses have little choice but to breathe it in. Livestock stoically munch their way through pastures that are almost constantly topdressed with the polluting dust.

On a recent weekend a group of concerned locals gathered to form a Lawrence and Devich action team, seeking a resolution to the concerning issues of road conditions and the threats to public health.

A Facebook page by this group quickly attracted a predictable tirade from haters and envyists. But why not applaud the efforts of a group who are ready to stand up and press for action from those responsible for these rogue roads?

 

Options, perhaps?
So, what are the options – presuming that the Lawrence-Devich-Cames link remains a preferred, and only feasible, bypass to the Insley bridge? The council clearly states that if sealing is to be contemplated, the residents on these roads will need to front up with the dosh, now and in years to come. And any such sealing must be done by the council's designated contractors.

Unfortunately Lawrence Road (I don't really know the Cames history on this) hasn't hosted a serious or fatal accident that would elevate us on the qualifying criteria. The daily near misses probably don't

count. But we are a school bus route; daily traffic is increasing at a significant rate; the council (presumably) is receiving decent contributions from the growing number of new homes being built on our and adjoining roads.

And let's not mention the Government's recent $23 million boost to roading in the council's area. Maybe our area's share of that got poured into the impressive new footpath, almost a car width wide, from Tara Road toward the Village.

Perhaps these roads can be formally recognised as a bypass, by council, NZTA or whomever, with sealing an immediate requirement.

Perhaps one of the farmers along the Lawrence-Devich-Cames axis can be encourged to sell land to a developer and this developer will benevolently seal the roads as a condition of the development – although this supposed requirement seemed not to be required for the well-housed community development near the northern end of Lawrence.

Perhaps someone wins the big jackpot and generously tosses in the million or so needed to seal a significant section of the roads.

Perhaps the council will do the thinking and conclude that doing the job once properly will prove more economic than constant, ineffective patching.

Perhaps the council – or whoever – will bend the rules and immediately reduce the road’s posted speed limit to a realistic 50kmh.

Perhaps not.

 

Keep fighting
While we appreciate and acknowledge the valid claims of those on Black Swamp and Brown Roads (and others) our group is going to push ahead with ongoing pleas to the council, the RTA, the Government or whoever is the ultimate decision-maker to, if necessary, move mountains – which our corrugations are rapidly beginning to resemble – and sort out the serious safety and health issues that are impacting upon us.

We've heard that our roads are far from top of the KDC's remedy and repair list. We've been warned that grading risks the generation of sparks that could conflagrate the bordering pastureland. We've been told that ‘hardly anyone's complained’. We've been told everything except that one thing we want to hear – that effective action is imminent.

So the council will continue to hear from us, right to our last gasp of drifting dust. And, to be selfish about it, we think our issue is more important than others, regardless of their merits.

We're not going to be the suckers to whom the movie hero utters ‘eat my dust’. We're not going to wait to compile a list of accidents and incidents as unaware or uncaring drivers continue to flaunt common sense. We're not going to continuing drinking water that's been filtered through unwanted layers of roof-collected dust. Why should we? We're getting sick of – and from – living on a road to ruin.

Rain or shine, Lawrence Road is a health hazard and is certainly not suitable as a bypass during repairs to the Insley Street bridge. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

We've been told everything except that one thing we want to hear – that effective action is imminent.