Damage after a logging truck lost its load on Otaika Valley Rd earlier this month. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Damage after a logging truck lost its load on Otaika Valley Rd earlier this month. Photo / Michael Cunningham
Funding needed to calm fears of further logging truck rollovers in Otaika Valley Rd will be sorted out when residents and Whangarei District Council representatives meet next week.
Whangarei Acting Mayor Phil Halse said yesterday funds for the road would be taken from other council projects where cash was notimmediately needed and the transfers would not affect the bottom line of the council budget.
The meeting between residents and councillors next Tuesday is expected to identify where speed restrictions and other steps are needed to improve safety on the 9.7km road, which logging trucks use as a bypass between Maungatapere on State Highway 14 and the Portland turn-off on State Highway 1 about 10km south of Whangarei.
On Wednesday night, more than 100 residents, council officials, truckies and police discussed traffic problems on the road at a public meeting at Maungatapere.
WDC roading manager Jeff Devine told the meeting the council was looking at reducing the speed limit to 80km/h and other ways to improve safety, but it would cost millions of dollars to eliminate danger sections of the road.
Phil Halse is confident road safety can be improved. Photo / John Stone
Asked yesterday where the money would come from, he said that would be decided when he and three other councillors who had been at the Maungatapere meeting met with residents next week.
The other councillors are Shelley Deeming, Sharon Morgan and Warwick Syers. Cr Halse and Cr Deeming represent the Bream Bay ward, which covers the southern end of Otaika Valley Rd, with the north end in Cr Morgan's Mangakahia-Maungatapere ward. Cr Syers chairs the council's finance and support committee.
Cr Halse explained how funds for Otaika Valley Rd would be transferred from other council projects and said he was confident improvements to road safety could be achieved. Cr Morgan declined to discuss manipulation of the council budget, but was equally confident safety improvements could be made through speed restrictions, education and other low-cost measures discussed on Wednesday.
