Underspent road budget disgraceful, says transport group

1.00pm

Government funding agency Transfund's underspending of its budget by $250 million is a "disgrace", Road Transport Forum chief executive Tony Friedlander said today.

"Each year the bucket of unspent money just gets bigger and bigger. It's gone from $90 million two years ago to $150 million last year and now its going to top the $250 million mark," Mr Friedlander said.

Transfund chief executive Wayne Donnelly said yesterday that the land transport sector had been unable to spend at existing funding levels.

"At this stage, Transfund has potentially $250 million from 2003/04 likely to be carried over to 2004/05."

Mr Donnelly said Transfund's 10-year forecast will allocate $5 billion more over the next 10 years than was forecast last year.

The additional money will effectively double the level of investment available for new infrastructures and services.

"We've got a 10-year window of opportunity with this extra funding. Transport authorities will now be able to do in five years what they've previously been planning to do in 10 years.

"They also need to focus on long-term planning beyond this timeframe to ensure they can take advantage of the extra transport investment in full," Mr Donnelly said.

Mr Friedlander said the fact that Transfund had underspent its budget could be directly attributed to the Land Transport Management Act.

"It's just not acceptable that money is lying idle while a host of desperately needed projects are stalled by the interminable processes the Government has introduced," he said.

"These latest figures show the system for getting action on new roads is getting slower, not speeding up as it must."

Mr Friedlander said he expected Transfund's total spending on new roads for the current 2003-04 year wouldn't be any greater than for the previous year, "despite all the promises about getting on with fixing the roading crisis".

Mr Donnelly said transport authorities would need to work with the Land Management Act, which "requires us to push for transport solutions which are well-integrated into an overall transport system and which are sustainable long-term".

- NZPA