Gravel supply issue affects rural roads

Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher. Photo / Supplied

A stoush between a Waihemo landowner and Downer has caused the Waitaki District Council to hold back routine gravelling on rural roads in the area and rethink its gravel supply strategy.

A quarry on private land, which was managed by Downer, had been used by the council's roading maintenance contractor, SouthRoads.

However, because of the dispute, the owner had locked the contractor out of the quarry until the matter was resolved, council roading manager Michael Voss said yesterday.

Last month, the council decided to pursue a long-term strategy to procure its own gravel supply to shield ratepayers from the risk of a price change for roading gravel.

Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said because materials were not a fixed cost in roading maintenance contracts, ''we are at the mercy of whoever's got the supply''.

''And particularly if there is only one supplier in a particular area, the cost of carting it becomes very expensive. We can't afford to be carting this material great distances, nor can we afford to be charging double or triple the price for it.''

Mr Voss said the council was faced with an extra $114,000 a year, ''including $89,000 in cartage costs alone'', to get road metal for the area, and so instead decided to spread less gravel on its roads.

Without its own supply of gravel, the council ended up with two problems, Mr Kircher said.

The council lost control of an important part of the roading maintenance process.

''And the other part of the problem is when maintenance contracts come up there is an advantage to the existing contractor because they have the resources already and someone else has to find those to be able to win the contract.

''Our belief is that we want to control our own destiny to a greater extent.''

In a report to the council's assets committee last month, the council's network operations engineer Mark Renalson recommended the council's strategy ought to be in line with other rural councils; it should secure aggregate sites for long-term certainty of supply, and that money be set aside in the council's 2018-28 long-term plan to start the programme.

''Recent loss of access to a private quarry and escalating rates from other private suppliers has highlighted the vulnerability of not controlling aggregate supplies for the district's roads,'' he wrote.

Council assets group manager Neil Jorgensen said while the council was ''having a bit of trouble sourcing metal [gravel] at Waihemo at a price that we were comfortable with'' he understood the situation was ''nearly resolved''.

And, he said the new strategy would take ''years'' to implement.

A council spokeswoman declined to name the landowner, calling the matter ''private''.

An email seeking comment was sent to Downer's media team on Tuesday, but no reply was received before press time yesterday.

Ratepayer satisfaction with roading is low in the Waitaki district: the council's draft roading business case 2018-21 - published on the council's website last month - states ''customer satisfaction in 2012-13 dropped significantly down to 39% and remains low at 35% in 2015-16''.