KEY POINTS:
Manukau Mayor Len Brown last night issued a stern message to Government rail agency Ontrack not to delay a $72 million rail link to a trenched station near his city centre.
"My advice to Ontrack is to stop mucking around - this is the time for us and you to make a commitment and let's get this job done," he said at a council meeting that resolved on cost grounds to build the station about 140m short of his offices.
Mr Brown's call followed an indication by the director of Ontrack's $600 million basic upgrade of the Auckland rail network, Ted Calvert, that the most efficient course may be to construct the branch line with the electrification project between 2011 and 2013.
An earlier plan was to build it as part of the basic upgrade by 2009-10.
The council decided last night that a 9m-deep rail trench, to which it and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority are contributing $12 million for enabling earthworks already under way in conjunction with Transit's Manukau motorway extension, should stop in Hayman Park - just to the west of Davies Cres.
Policy and activities committee chairwoman Colleen Brown said it would be preferable to extend the line right to the shopping centre, as is the case at Sylvia Park, but that was unaffordable "although if [mall owner] Westfield is prepared to stump up extra money I wouldn't say no".
Councillor Bob Wichman was upset the line would initially serve only rail movements to and from central Auckland, and it could be 10 years before a south-facing link started.
