Cover up job finally done on wiring

Staff looking down from their lunchroom in the Bindons engineering and auto-electrical store on the corner of Water St and Walton St in Whangarei had been waiting for the intersection traffic lights to fail.

About a year ago, they noticed a hole in the road's tarseal had exposed wires and PVC pipe they believed carried current to operate the lights.

Having seen the dodgy driving which light failures had brought in the past, the Bindons staff called to let the Whangarei District Council know repairs were needed.

Bindons' key account manager Rose Hunter said a couple of phone calls led to workmen filling the hole with hotmix.

But the soft tar mix soon peeled away under constant traffic pressure and early last month Bindons was getting back to the council.

"One guy here rang the roading division four times but they didn't seem interested," Ms Hunter said.

"He then rang the council contractors, Currie Electrical, but they said any request for them to take action had to come through the council."

When the Northern Advocate asked the council about the issue, senior roading engineer Greg Monteith said on Wednesday the exposed wires were old redundant advance loops on Water St.

"They have been disconnected and there is no risk of electrical shock," he said.

"Patch maintenance repair work is planned to be undertaken as soon as it can be scheduled in."

That explanation did not convince sceptics in the Bindons lunchroom.

"A brand new bit installed under a grate on the footpath has a traffic loop label. It was put in quite recently and it lines up with the PVC pipe in the hole in the road," Ms Hunter said yesterday.

And even if the wires in the pipe were old and disconnected, she wondered why the hole, which had been in the road for many weeks, had not been repaired.

But this time Ms Hunter didn't have long to wait for action.

She phoned the Advocate about 4pm yesterday to say council contractors were finally putting a patch over the problem.