Waimakariri District Council has re-jigged it’s roading programme after a drop in co-funding from NZ Transport Agency.
The cost of building and maintaining local roads is shared between central government, through NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) and local councils.
NZTA contributes to local roads from taxes whereas councils contribute from rates and borrowing, in what is known as the ‘local share’.
Council’s set projects and budget for these in their Long Term and Annual Plans while waiting for confirmation of co-funding from NZTA. If funding isn’t delivered at the expected level this requires a re-budget and re-prioritisation.
In the last Long Term Plan, Waimakariri District Council asked NZTA for a $9.5m contribution towards roading infrastructure projects. NZTA allocated $0.7m - leaving a shortfall of $8.82m for roading improvements.
For road maintenance Council received only $49.8m of the $59m needed to maintain our districts roads. This is another $4.7m lower than what was asked for to maintain our roads at a level expected by our community.
Overall, this left the Council with a $13.5m gap it it’s budgeted programme.
Waimakariri Mayor Dan Gordon says Council instructed staff to rejig, reduce-scope, and progress some projects to design stage only to work within the available budget.
“We know that many people in the community are feeling the pinch. Because of this our non-negotiable was not to increase costs and live within our budget. What we’ve done is re-prioritise and defer work to a level that stayed within budget.
“Overall, the roading budget process is frustrating because the timing of Council and NZTA budgets don’t align, and we often need to review our roading activity shortly after adopting our 10-year-programme.
“This is something that I’m regularly feeding back to NZTA as something that should change as it would provide more certainty to communities who rightly want roading improvements.”
The council added $0.93m for safety improvements for schools, rural intersections, and a small contribution for walking and cycling safety improvements. It did this by delaying other projects in future years, noting these can be reconsidered in next year’s Annual Plan.