Tavern owner worried about truck noise in middle of night

Eric Gathercole is concerned about noise from trucks passing through Wimbledon early in the morning. Photo / Leanne Warr

A Wimbledon business owner is fed up with logging trucks coming through the township in the early hours of the morning and wants something done about it.

Eric Gathercole, the proprietor of the Wimbledon Tavern, met with the Dannevirke Community Board on Monday.

The noise from logging trucks is the main concern for residents along Route 52. Photo / NZME

He said heavy trade vehicles, logging trucks in particular, were coming through between 2 and 7 o'clock in the morning and making enough noise to wake up residents.

"These vehicles are passing by at speeds up to and possibly in excess of the currently allowed 100km/h, often using Jacobs engine brakes either unloaded or carrying 50 tonnes of logs."

Most mornings, there were 20 or more vehicles passing between 2 and 7 o'clock every day at varying intervals with road noise that included clanking chains, pylons and the occasional application of engine brakes, he said.

Signs had been placed about 200m from the intersection of Route 52 and Herbertville Rd asking trucks not to use engine brakes.

Similar signs were placed in Herbertville Rd and Sergeants Hill.

Gathercole said the issue, which had been going on for more than 12 months, was affecting his mental health.

He told the board he'd said to other people to try setting their alarm at 2am and hitting snooze until 6am and try for a week and see how they felt.

The tavern was about 3m from the road, and that added to the problem.

"This being woken up periodically is influencing our mental health and is exhausting to say the least, when it comes to sleep disruption and deprivation."

Gathercole had on one night counted 22 trucks between 2.40am and 6am, and told the board at least 80 passed through from 2am up to 3pm.

He said it was not possible to identify the offending vehicles in the darkness and in daylight hours their speeds as well as engine braking were reduced.

"I have stopped several vehicles on numerous occasions and requested some consideration and observation of the posted signage."

That worked for about a week and speaking with trucking companies helped for only a short time.

Gathercole had spoken with local police about the matter and several excessively noisy trucks had been sorted out, but the problem was still ongoing and he felt it was becoming a health and safety issue.

He said he had tried various agencies including Waka Kotahi and Tararua District Council to get solutions.

He approached the community board to see if permanent signage with a speed limit of 50km/h could be put up for the entire Wimbledon area and move the engine brake sign further up the valley.

"This will dramatically reduce the noise created throughout the area that wakes us up every time a vehicle approaches or passes. It will also provide a safer pedestrian zone is this area for tavern patrons, especially weekends when children are present."

Another option was following the example of two other councils that had banned trucks from driving between certain hours and banning them from using Route 52 between Waipukurau and Dannevirke before 7am.

Gathercole said he was not the only person affected.

He said he was happy to raise a petition if that were necessary.

Members of the board said they would look into it, perhaps by contacting the other councils to see how they enforced the rule.

Tararua District Council may not have the power to enforce a ban on trucks driving through the area during the hours of 2am to 7am. Photo / NZME

Tararua District Council group manager of infrastructure Chris Chapman said he wasn't sure whether council had the power to be able to enforce a ban on trucks using the road during darkness hours.

The issue was not a new one, he said.

"Route 52, through Wimbledon especially, is known as a high-truck-volume area. There's been logging trucks going through that area for a long, long time and will continue to do so. And that's why government invested so heavily in not just our section of Route 52 between Weber and the boundary for Central Hawke's Bay District Council, but more money on the Central Hawke's Bay District Council side for the trucks that are going from our district and coming from their district with all the forestry that's going on."

Speed limits were being reviewed nationally under new rules set by the Government and it was extremely likely that speeds would be further reduced and that would go some way to alleviate the problem.

In terms of noise pollution, that was a road policing issue but police said their main focus was on roading offences that caused harm.