Gisborne's fragile roads

Carrying on: Work continues on stabilising the cliff above State Highway 35 at Makorori. The yellow diggers are dwarfed by the massive cliff face, which has been terraced. A retaining wall is being built at the base. A GDC operations committee meeting this week heard that Gisborne's ongoing roading maintenance and renewal needs are running at $161.7m above funding levels. Picture by Ben Cowper

Gisborne's expected roading maintenance and renewal needs for the 2021-2031 Long-Term Plan period are an “unaffordable” $161.7m above current funding levels.

Gisborne District Council needs to make tough decisions and prioritise spending on the “fragile” network, says Gisborne District Council lifelines director David Wilson.

He gave that figure to the operations committee (consisting of the mayor and all councillors) when speaking about an emergency roading application of $26.7 million to be made to Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, and reported by The Herald on Tuesday.

Mr Wilson said the council had been upfront with the community.

Some roads would have to be allowed to deteriorate given the funding situation.

Other ongoing issues included climate change, more frequent flooding and the increased role of forestry.

At about the same time central government had said no further road funding would be made available, and had reduced the funding assistance rate (Waka Kotahi investment into local roads).

Public consultation in 2020 showed the public wanted funding levels maintained.

“All we've done is defer these things out,” Mr Wilson said.

“We still have that damage because we haven't been able to get on top of the work that needs to be done across the network.

“We have not got the funding.”

In the five years to June 2021 flood repairs of $71m had been carried out in the district with $9.1m paid by rates.

That was “just the big flood repairs”, said Mr Wilson.

There were still outstanding flood repairs dating back to 2018, including June 2018 ($1.8m), September 2018 ($1.5m), June 2020 ($11.1m) and July 2020 ($17.6m).

Mr Wilson said the outstanding works were not “quick fixes” and the various requirements included complex designs, engineering, consents and allowing for traffic to continue.

Required repair work from five other storms from November 2021 to April 2022 were part of the emergency application for funding of $26.7m which will be presented to Waka Kotahi next month.

The council needed ratepayer funding of $2m to $3m just for Cyclone Dovi in March 2022.

Mr Wilson said the council was only two months into its financial year (starts on July 1) and had only $2.1m of available emergency funding for the rest of the year.

“It's already exhausted before the worst part of the year.”

This was the period from February to April when tropical cyclones arrived in the district.

Mr Wilson said the council was likely to be granted the normal emergency assistance rate of 87 percent from Waka Kotahi, but had applied for a bespoke application with a 100 percent funding rate.

Waka Kotahi will make its decision in early October.

“We are not waiting,” said Mr Wilson.

Work had begun on engineering designs for a number of sites across the roading network.

Experts from outside the district would be required.

There were 1650 emergency work sites.

Tenders would go out subject to funding.

Tenders and consents would be “bundled”.

In November, supply lines could become an issue, Mr Wilson said.

The delivery of rocks from Opotiki had been a problem for some weeks.

The same issue would arise with chip seal.

Contractors had other roading contracts and housing builds.

Mr Wilson said the repair of access roads across the district would be prioritised with the top three being school bus routes, safe access to communities and forestry and farm access.

School bus routes had to be safe, and negotiable when it's raining.

Regarding safe access to communities, he gave an example of the Mayor driving her vehicle, a Mitsubishi Outlander. Could she, with normal tyres, complete the journey when it is raining?

For farm access, there was an an animal welfare issue with winter and a lack of feed.

The needs of the forestry industry were huge and for this reason a heavy metalling programme would be prioritised.

Mr Wilson said “priority fixes” worth $3.1m had been fast-tracked across the district for 25 roads.

Those roads would be named shortly.

The work did not involve heavy metalling, but the repairs of slumps, drop-outs and culverts to make the roads safe.

Mr Wilson said he knew there were frustrations, but work was based on seasonal factors.

Heavy metalling was not done at this time of the year.

It would be punched straight into the mud and disappear within weeks, even more so if heavy trucks used the road.

Seasons for road repairs —

July-September: culverts, water tabling, minimal grading and aggregate.

Oct-Dec — pre-seal repairs, heavy metalling, increased grading, reseals if possible.

Jan -Mar — completion of re-seals, re-seals, pre-winter lockdown.

Apr-June — heavy metalling until too wet, drainage, unsealed road grading until too wet.

■ Gisborne's roading network makes up over 83 percent of the council's infrastructure and is worth $1.6 billion.

Mr Wilson said that was nearly double the value of the average New Zealand unitary council.

The network includes 887 roads and streets covering 1899 kilometres, 413 bridges, 263km of footpaths, 10.9km of cycle/walkways, 3703 street lights, 20 roundabouts and one set of traffic lights.