Extra cash due for Waikato roads

The Waikato is set to receive a major financial injection by Christmas to improve roads which have claimed 66 lives this year.

At a meeting of the Regional Land Transport Committee in Hamilton yesterday, Transport Minister Pete Hodgson said he hoped to announce a special transport funding package for the region by Christmas.

A special $500 million national transport fund was announced by Finance Minister Michael Cullen at the end of last month, from which the Waikato could benefit.

Mr Hodgson said that if the committee could complete investigation into its priority projects as part of its Regional Land Transport Strategy by Christmas, funding would be confirmed.

He said it would require great co-operation from all local authorities and affected parties, a big task when the scope of the roading projects could be as large as work in Auckland, Wellington and Bay of Plenty combined.

Critics, however, say they expected to see some confirmed funding from the minister's visit yesterday.

The chairman of the Regional Land Transport Committee, Angus MacDonald, said he was a "little disappointed".

"I thought we might have had a little more certainty of some money in the near future."

He said there had been much investigation into what needed to be fixed on Waikato roads but there was obviously more work to do.

The promise of cash comes weeks after National announced that if it was elected the Waikato Expressway would be built within 10 years.

Mr Hodgson said it was clear Waikato's roading problems could not be fixed through conventional avenues of financing via Transit and its funding body Land Transport New Zealand, so the money had to come from the Government.

"Transit has not been able to progress Waikato projects as fast as I would have liked," Mr Hodgson said, adding that more than $26 billion would need to be spent in the region in the next 10 years.

"The State Highway programme each year has not benefited the Waikato well, and if one looks at how many projects are staying on track, being put back, put forward or added year by year, it is easy to assess that the Waikato could dobetter."

He said work on State Highways 1 and 2 would obviously be a priority in the region, but it could not be limited to that.

On State Highway 1, there are planned bypasses of Huntly, Ngaruawahia, Te Rapa, Hamilton and Cambridge.

On State Highway 2, work is planned on bypasses of Mangatawhiri and Maramarua, with expansion to four lanes in some areas.

"It cannot be limited to that. It has to include environmental issues, whether its stock effluent or that bloody bridge at Kopu," Mr Hodgson said.

Transit's 10-year plan, released at the end of last month, caused anger in the region because Waikato Expressway projects on State Highway 1 had been put down the list and were not expected to happen until at least 2012 to 2013.