Anger swells over eastern highway route options

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Meadowbank and Panmure residents are rising up against proposals that would see the eastern highway devastate their suburbs.

Meadowbank residents have formed Anti-Motorway in Meadowbank (Aim) and collected more than 4000 signatures for a petition opposing two options that would destroy hundreds of houses and leave thousands more residents living close to the six-lane highway.

The Panmure Community Action Group has been stunned to find proposals that would wipe out central Panmure and cut the community off from the Panmure Basin.

Group spokesman Keith Sharp said it would be political suicide for Auckland City Mayor John Banks and his council to agree to the bulldozing of an Auckland City community for the benefit of Manukau commuters.

Mr Banks said he regretted any anxiety, but the Resource Management Act meant the council had to investigate all the technically feasible options for the highway, costed at between $1.9 billion and $2.9 billion.

People would just have to be patient and he was trying to bring forward the March date for announcing the preferred option.

Opus International Consultants, which is looking at options around 11 feasible routes for the 27km highway through Auckland's eastern suburbs, has received about 3000 submissions.

It has to analyse the submissions and do more geotechnical work and work on connecting the highway at the city end before it can recommend a preferred option to the Auckland City and Manukau councils and Transit.

Aim spokesman John Tolhurst said Meadowbank and St Johns residents were united against two "quarry" options that would see the highway go up Meadowbank Rd from the Meadowbank railway station, under St Johns Rd, through Waiatarua Reserve, under the Remuera Golf Course and alongside Mt Wellington Quarry.

"It will destroy a wonderful community that's quiet, peaceful, has family community spirit. It's something Auckland City should be proud of and endeavour, at all costs, to retain and not destroy," he said.

The Waiatarua Reserve Protection Society also opposes the quarry options, saying it would destroy the peace and tranquillity of the wetland which, with plans to house a further 8000 people at nearby Mt Wellington Quarry, should be held sacred.

In a letter to Mr Banks, the Panmure Community Action Group said the two new options came out of the blue, one destroying the town centre and the other cutting the community off from the recreational and environmental basin.

Either would be a catastrophe for Panmure and render obsolete years of work the council and community had done to develop the Panmure Liveable Communities Plan, the letter said.

Stop the Eastern Motorway lobby group said that in the three months since the opening of Britomart, rail had taken 1000 to 1500 cars off city roads, the same number that the eastern highway was predicted to take off the Southern Motorway by 2021.

The Stem group's spokesman, Richard Harris, said the figures showed that the eastern corridor should be further developed for rail and not destroyed by a new road.

Mr Banks said he was upbeat about the effect improved rail services would have on public transport, but disagreed with Stem.

"It doesn't take into account the fact that Auckland increases by the size of Dunedin every four years and that the number of cars in Auckland is set to double in the next 20 to 25 years," Mr Banks said.

Meanwhile, the Ombudsman is investigating the refusal by Auckland and Manukau councils and Transit to release details about the risks associated with the highway.

The Herald has sought the information under the Official Information Act.