Hastings man Ian Glenny hopes the rocky ride around a neighbourhood street will soon be fixed after damage to his car which "bellied" on Norton Rd near Akina.
Hastings District Council has been upgrading the road during the past couple of weeks and Mr Glenny is critical of the job."I live near Norton Rd and have a shed which I access there regularly. Just before Christmas, I got a new car, it's low profile, narrow tyre and diesel because its designed to be economical," he said.
"I went to drive down to my shed on Norton Rd recently when I came to the 30km speed reduction sign at the start of the roadworks. It was a hell of a drop down and so steep on the way out that my car bellied [the undercarriage scraped the road]."
Mr Glenny said he had worked as a contractor on road redevelopment around Hastings and felt the work on Norton Rd was not up to scratch. "I'd like to see them use the right metal on the road for starters and I can't see there was any compaction done on this road at all. As a ratepayer, I would expect the road to be left in a better condition that what it was over a weekend period so it doesn't get ripped up by cars on a Sunday."
The council said its project manager had been to Norton Rd on Monday morning as part of his regular site meetings with the contractor. It said cars were able to negotiate the transition from the sealed section to the lower reconstructed area of the road at the 30km speed limit.
"Obviously, if people do not follow the posted speed limit signs or have exceptionally low vehicles there is always the potential for some degree of grounding out, as is the case on any construction site."
The council said just before last weekend, the new road base had material from the old road spread but was not compacted. That work was started on Monday morning once cement had been added.
It said using old gravel and cement as the base for new residential roads was standard practice in Hastings and a key part of the council's sustainable development approach.
