Tough calls ahead on roads
26 August 2014Waipa District Council says the community may need to make some tough calls around what it spends on road sealing over the next 10 years.
Councillors have already indicated that they want to set aside money over the next decade to tackle some of the five per cent of Waipa's roads that remain unsealed. Proposals on how much money should be ring-fenced for road sealing, and over what timeframe, are likely to be put out to the community for discussion later this year.
Mayor Jim Mylchreest said in an ideal world elected members and the wider community would like all roads in the district sealed. He acknowledged that living on an unsealed road was sometimes challenging for residents because of dust.
But this is not an ideal world. As a district, we're going to need to weigh up how much we spend on sealing roads, particularly on peat roads, against all the other projects the community may wish us to fund, he said.
What we know is that we are likely to have less money to spend on discretionary projects like road sealing in the coming 10 years than ever, largely because of the major investment we will need to make in water.
Council staff have advised that Waipa's peat soils and their changing water levels have big cost implications for the road-sealing budget. It costs $160,000 per kilometer to build a road on firmer non-peat soil compared to $295,000 per kilometer to build on peat. In addition, maintaining roads built on peat costs $20,000 per kilometer each year, compared to $12,000 per year for roads build on a more stable base.
Of the 60km of unsealed roads remaining in the district, around 18 per cent are on peat soils.
Sealing some roads in the district on a peat base will be like building on soup. It's not that we can't do it; it will just cost nearly twice as much and be far more costly to maintain, Mayor Mylchreest said.
Wallace and Jary Roads on peat soils were good examples, he said. It would cost more than $500,000 to seal the remaining 1.75 km on Jary Road and more than $2 million to seal 7.3km on Wallace Road. Jary Road would cost around $35,000 a year to maintain and Wallace Road would cost more than $145,000 a year to maintain.
That's an ongoing financial commitment because we have to maintain those roads year-on-year.
Over the last 10 years, Waipa District Council has spent around $3 million on its road-sealing programme. In the 2014-2015 year, it will seal parts of Waterworks Road, Grove Road, Middle Road and Maungakawa Road at a cost of around $500,000. The money to seal the roads, like much of the council's capital works, is funded by 20-year loans.
Road sealing work is prioritised based on a range of factors including traffic volumes, dust exposure, the cost of maintenance, the impact on economic earnings and the amount of community activity and heavy vehicle usage. Growth is also taken into account.
As a council and as a community we need to start thinking about how much money should go into road sealing over the next decade, Mayor Mylchreest said.
If the community wants us to put more money into sealing roads, that's fine. But people will also need to be clear on what areas we shouldn't then fund. We can't have it both ways.
ENDS
Media enquiries: Jeanette Tyrrell 027 5077 599
