The regional leaders took a short drive along SH3 in Stratford getting a close look at recent seal repairs on the highway. Photo / Ilona Hanne
The regional leaders took a short drive along SH3 in Stratford getting a close look at recent seal repairs on the highway. Photo / Ilona Hanne
Taranaki’s potholed highway is undoubtedly a problem, says New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom, but the potholes themselves are a symptom of a far bigger problem facing our roading network.
“The potholes are the symptom we all see, but the real problem is the cause of them. The lack of infrastructure maintenance on our highways.”
Neil was in Stratford, Taranaki, on Tuesday afternoon to meet with his fellow Taranaki leaders, Mayor Phil Nixon of South Taranaki, Mayor Neil Volzke of Stratford, and Taranaki Regional Council chairwoman Charlotte Littlewood.
All four of them spend a lot of time on the region’s roads, and all share the frustration of what Holdom describes as being “a roading network that has been consistently underfunded for the last 15 or so years”.
It’s this frustration that led him to launch a referendum petition, which, having received approval from the Clerk of the House of Parliament, now has a year to gather signatures. If in that time it gets the signatures of at least 10 percent of the national electorate, it would trigger a non-binding citizens-initiated referendum on state highway maintenance.
The petition asks — “Should the New Zealand government fund road maintenance at levels sufficient to reverse the current decline in the average age and condition of our national state highway network?”
The answer is yes, says Holdom, and his was the first signature to be inked on the petition on Tuesday, closely followed by the other two Taranaki mayors and the Taranaki Regional Council chairwoman.
New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom (right) was the first to sign the petition, followed by South Taranaki District Mayor Phil Nixon (left), Stratford District Mayor Neil Volzke (seated) and Taranaki Regional Council chairwoman Charlotte Littlewood. Photo / Ilona Hanne
Each of the four will now take the petition details to their next council meeting, where they will ask their councillors to approve having the petition available for signing in their respective council facilities.
“It’s not a one-party issue ... parties of all shades and colours have underfunded our roading maintenance over the past 10 or 15 years and it’s time for that to change,” says Holdom.
“Let’s get political parties to agree to increase funding for road maintenance across the country prior to the election and then we can hold them to account once the votes have been cast.”
Holdom says the funding model for roading needs to change.
“We use debt funding for new projects, but when it comes to maintenance we need to bite the bullet and accept it means potentially increasing road-user charges and petrol excise taxes to get the job done.”
If the job isn’t done, the future is bleak for the country’s state highways, and he has the figures to prove that, he says.
Holdom used the Official Information Act to ask Waka Kotahi for details of the remaining seal life of state highways by region. Putting the information he got from that into a graph was eye-opening, he says.
“It really is a case of a picture being worth a thousand words. It clearly shows just how bad a state our roading network is in.”
New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom had a graph created using information from Waka Kotahi showing the remaining seal life of the nation's highways. Image / Supplied
The graph shows Taranaki’s roads are tracking worse than the national average, with other regions sitting even lower. This, says the New Plymouth mayor, is why people throughout the country should sign the petition.
“This isn’t a Taranaki problem, it’s a national problem. It’s obviously a safety issue, potholed roads are dangerous, but it’s also an economic asset that links our communities and regions that is broken and falling to pieces. We need to act now and change this.”
Potholes are a common sight on the state highway network, says New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom. Photo / Ilona Hanne
