Supercar street races to face public scrutiny

By WAYNE THOMPSON

Auckland City Council's plan to stage V8 Supercar street races goes under the public microscope today.

A joint council-International Management Group bid for a resource consent application has been publicly notified, with an assessment of environmental effects.

Public submissions on the application, which will be decided by an independent commissioner, close on June 30.

The applicants seek to run the annual three-day street race in the April school holidays for seven years from 2006.

The 2.6km circuit and service areas will mean closure of Fanshawe St, parts of Hobson St, Victoria St West and Beaumont St from 7pm on Thursday to 6am Monday.

Other road closures will apply to adjacent streets.

The council says the key to managing the effect of road closures on traffic flow will be to get people to change their travel habits.

Safety barriers and grandstands will be present for eight and a half weeks - five weeks before the event and three weeks after the event.

The application says traffic flow on arterial roads will be maintained and individual property access will be possible during the five- and three-week periods either side of the event.

Victoria Park will be the centre for the event and lead to restrictions on the park for up to 10 days and closure of sports fields for a month.

Submission forms are available from any council library, service centre or on www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/news/notices.

North Shore Mayor George Wood said many of his city's residents had concerns about congestion on the harbour bridge as a result of street closures.

Mr Wood said it was too soon to say whether his council would oppose the consent bid, because North Shore staff were still wading through the technical information.

But he said Auckland City could woo North Shore by using "more accelerator, less brake" in its promotion of the project to widen the Victoria Park flyover.

The viaduct was a main cause of motorway congestion, offering only two lanes for all traffic, said Mr Wood, and the Auckland City Council should stop delaying the project to add two more lanes by preferring an expensive tunnel option.