Letters to the Editor

 

Big road problems
I read with interest the recent statement by NRC Transport Committee chair John Bain on road issues.

The fact that the chairman speaks out now about Mangakahia Road in surprised tones is tragic when records show that these are issues spoken of for years. This storm has brought these issues to the fore. Look further than the storm area. Note the big joke of kilometres of closed passing lanes on the south side of Whangarei city. These are design and build failures and the same people who designed and built those are now lining up at the trough for the fix-it-up money.

Roads are failing everywhere and the lack of route security this week cost hundreds of millions of dollars with extra heavy transport cost, milk dumping, workers’ travel disrupted, cancelled projects, seized up roads, and road repair of badly designed roads in the first place.

Using criteria such as cost-benefit ratio with traffic flows, while real production and route security are ignored is ridiculous, inward-looking and, sadly, self-perpetuating. Get decent people into the programme and rock the North forward. There are definitely deep problems with roads in Northland.

This recent storm and the roads debacle show the NRC Transport Committee needs a full-scale investigation.

The entire road fund allocation process smacks of in-house deals and parochial deception. You could follow the projects and find that the funds allocations rub the backs of a few by where they live or where their cosy politics leans, and the thought of regional development is not there at all. Token spending in the other districts has turned Far North and Kaipara District roads into a third world state even though they produce the wealth. If any committee members sat in the line of traffic with hundreds of heavy vehicles on the roads, entering and exiting the Far North District, they may have an inkling of where the shortfalls are.

The Land Transport Committee must realise that Northland’s future is Whangarei’s future. A quick check on 50 years of spending will show the tale. And anyone thinking they can fudge the books ought to know that when the investigation does happen then the projects and funds if laid on a Northland map will be the evidence. I guarantee that most of the projects will fall into the area of the people who control that funding. It will be plain that the Northland Regional Transport Committee has not served Northland well as a region at all. From the Government right down to those members on the committee, this smacks of sad cronyism.

Of course now the big joke situation of who closes these roads needs to be asked. What is their expertise? What effort was made to connect SH1 and Mangakahia Road about route security? Very experienced road people were consulted and there was no need to close those roads. State Highway 1 could have remained open for north bound traffic and Mangakahia for south bound.

As well, the emergency fix showed woeful plant use, for instance an eight ton digger scratching like a chook on the side of the highway while 30 ton machines stood up the road idle. No effort was made to source outside plant that could have sped up the process as the companies who control council and Government funds stretched the repair dollars as far as they could. The use of only one lane on the Mangakahia was available, as the other was needed to park the hundreds of road works vehicles on, all with three or four surplus staff. The district

councils need to demand that investigation. The NRC should be asking why it has a monopoly on that Committee, because the results show.

Les King
Whangarei electorate candidate
FOCUS NZ
 

Column just propaganda And as expected, the inevitable and tiresome political spin continues in the regular propaganda column cynically entitled "Your Questions Answered". Oddly enough, I can answer my own questions, even when not asked, relatively easily. The sanctimonious and entirely anticipated attempt to leverage from the recent storm suffered by the North, by seizing another political opportunity to berate and deride a section of Mangawhai people was simply nauseating. But of course that is the common thread in performing like a true politician. Any sensible individual is able to read between the lines, and deduce that while the first part of the latest spiel is spent greasy-palming those dedicated people whom we already know do a magnificent job, the last third blatantly exposes the cheap-shot opportunity taken at the Mangawhai ratepayers again for withholding so-called rates. Neither the vulnerability or condition of the roading infrastructure is the Mangawhai Ratepayers Association's fault, and neither was the storm. Here are some other real answers. It is well recognised that the greater proportion of the ratepayers who have been forced to "pay up" in June, so to speak, are those that have been bludgeoned into submission by the only weapon left available – penalties. Some unfortunate families simply have not been able to afford the additional debt which the council is knowingly enforcing upon them, assisted by the commissioner's arrogance and interim high-court judgement's unsealed mandate. That is a cold hard fact, and the commissioners know it. If these people had been financially able to do so, they would have remained steadfast. No detriment to them, as this is also well understood. In choosing to publicly thank those that are in this category in the Focus newspaper, go and ask the majority how they really feel about being "thanked". And here is another cold hard fact. There are countless examples of shoddy roading work undertaken by the proverbial contractors again, necessitating repeat surfacing within two or three months, and the re-excavation of brand-new finished works due to poor project management. And these (which I will not waste words mentioning) have not been required as a result of any storm. The sooner that we are able to return to reading the Mangawhai Focus as a community-oriented publication, without having to endure the blatant attempts at answering our unsolicited questions for us and insulting our intelligence , the better. One can only hope that after the time of writing , the legal system has since done it's job and the political weasel-words move off to another trough as far away as possible. Ray Jamieson Mangawhai

Working for all Northland?
On Monday July 21 I attended a meeting at Matakohe called to hear Northland MP Mike Sabin’s progress in getting the one-way SH12 Matakohe bridges replaced. These two short bridges are a pain in the butt, and Matakohe people (just like Taipa with a much longer one-way bridge) have had enough. Mike has pledged to make Matakohe bridge replacement the highest roading priority in Northland. Mike has done a lot of work, and good on him, but funding evades the project and it’s about time Mike found out why.

Mike was asked, “Do you think that rural roads throughout NZ are in poor condition due to Government spend on RONS?” Mike’s response was “No! Not at all.”

Everybody is entitled to an opinion, but what concerned the three past members of the Northland Regional Transport Committee (NRTC) present at the meeting was the statement from the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) representative who was assisting Mike. Earnest Ernst claimed the reason the Matakohe Bridges had not been replaced was because the NRTC had not given them priority. So sorry chum, politicians can talk (and too often do) crap but NZTA staff should not.

I was a member of the June 6, 2012 meeting of the Northland Regional Land Transport Committee where NZTA representative Steven Town explained that project cuts to the Northland Regional Land Transport Program were the result of the government’s requirement to prioritise the RONS projects. The $1.8m programmed in 2009 for Matakohe property purchase, investigation and design had been canned by the NZTA board and given “project archived” status.

What did the Regional Transport Committee do? The June 6 minutes record (Item 5.6) Moved (Carr/Rintoul) ‘That the report Northland Regional Land Transport Programme 2009-2012 – Funding Uptake … be received and that this committee records its protest of the steady erosion of funds provided to rural New Zealand.” The minutes further record (Item 5.7) “Members of the committee expressed concern that ongoing changes in strategic direction and responses based on population growth and traffic volumes is directing greater funding into meeting the needs of the metropolitan area of Auckland at the expense of the productive areas that service it… Additionally measurement of total traffic volumes has little regard to the increasing weight and numbers of trucks using the network.”

Look at the mess our roads and highways are now in.

Please get your facts right Mike. Your help wasn’t there when we needed it. Matakohe Bridges were shafted in 2012 by the Government that you were part of and it’s a bit late to claim foul and blame others.

Cr Joe Carr
NRC, Hokianga-Kaikohe


MP should get facts right
In response to Mike Sabin’s editorial (Mangawhai Focus, July 21) – $1.66 billion worth of roading projects are committed to the Northland Region!

These projects are actually in the Auckland Region, finishing at the Northland boundary, and are expected to be completed in 20 years time.

Over the last couple of years alone, over 60 percent of all roading funding has been spent in the Whangarei district, with less than 40 percent being spent in the Northland district.

At the rate the Government is stripping funding generated in Northland to their Roads of National Significance (RONS) and their gold plated motorways (estimated at $55 million per annum) we will eventually end up with a motorway to third world roads in Northland, except within the Whangarei City boundary.

Fast tracking the Puhoi extension is a farce, as this project is still on target with the same original start and completion dates.

I am told that even before the July storm event our Council had invited our MP to meetings to discuss roading issues, but even with their best efforts, to date this meeting has not occurred. This editorial of his is just pure electioneering.

What our MP should do when the Prime Minister next visits is take him for a drive in an average Northland vehicle and drive the very below par roads we have in Northland. Then he might see the seriousness of the issues.

The difference between the now MP and the Focus NZ Party is we will take provincial Northland issues TO government, NOT defend national policies to the provinces.

I was dismayed to hear Northland’s MP at a recent meeting held in Matakohe, where he slated the Northland Transport Committee as being the hold-up for projects in Northland. This statement is incorrect. Shame on you.

Focus NZ Party wants to point out that NZTA are the ‘gatekeepers’ of all roading funding, at the direction of the National Party led Government Policy Statement on Land Transport Funding, which in the last 6 years has directed funding to congestion and motorways.

Ken Rintoul
Candidate for Northland
Focus NZ Party