Teachers urged to use mics to beat roadwork noise

Brett Skeen. Photo / Brett Skeen

Microphones were suggested for teachers to make themselves heard over construction noise on Auckland's $1.75 billion Waterview motorway project, says a spokesman for a neighbouring primary school.

A Transport Agency assessment of social impacts for a board of inquiry planning hearing starting next month claims there is a "high level of misinformation" in the community about the project, citing a suggestion it would be "so loud it would require teachers to wear microphones" and would take land from Waterview Primary School and an adjacent kindergarten.

But school board member Rob Black has, in evidence prepared for the board and the Education Ministry, rejected the charge of misinformation and claimed the report underestimates the project's impact on people.

"It states they will adapt," said Mr Black, who has two children at the school, which will be near the northern portals of twin motorway tunnels and almost under the shadow of a 25m vehicle emissions venting tower.

He said he had attended several meetings with Transport Agency staff at which they suggested microphones might be an option to mitigate noise.

He also said an agency proposal to move the kindergarten from the construction site would require school land for a kindergarten carpark.

The Auckland Kindergarten Association will ask the board of inquiry to make the move permanent, instead of a temporary fix proposed by the agency until the motorway - the final link in the 48km western ring route - is completed in late 2016.

Association assistant general manager Peter Pablecheque says it is far from happy at the prospect of returning to its existing site, which is just 10 to 12m from where the agency wants to build the emissions tower.

Mr Black said children were sensitive learners who were distracted easily and he was concerned at Transport Agency evidence that the school would be affected by construction noise at intermittent times over a long period.

He said air quality was a key concern, and wants a proposed one-year monitoring regime to be extended to account for changing weather patterns.

School principal Brett Skeen, whose roll dwindled from 202 in 2000 to 142 in July as families began moving away in anticipation of the motorway project, wants the Transport Agency to maintain staff funding at the earlier level for five years after construction.