Roading is a Far North local body issue that never goes away.
Initiatives aimed at trying to upgrade much of the district's 2500km council roading network have come and gone over the years but are now being lent real urgency as the area's vast radiata pine forests reach maturityand harvest readiness.
Tens of thousands of tonnes of logs must hit the district's often substandard roads on their way to mills or ports further south.
When road surfaces are not up to heavy daily pounding from 32-wheel trucks, the going can only get worse for tourists, farm vehicles, school buses and locals alike.
It is a problem successive Far North District Councils have wrestled with since local body amalgamation in 1989.
The current council is forced to spend around 42 per cent of its annual, district-wide $24 million rates income on road maintenance and capital roading work.
Now a "think-tank" of five councillors has set out to try to achieve the seemingly impossible - convince central Government that the Far North district is a special case.
At recent meetings with Transport Minister Mark Gosche and with representatives of road funding agency Transfund, the Far North group has pushed hard for an improved funding assistance ratio for both capital spending and maintenance costs on roads. Councillors point out that until Transfund's benefit-cost ratios take into account safety, amenity and health issues associated with narrow, unsealed roads, then almost no roading in a district council-proposed 10-year seal extension programme will qualify for subsidy money at a current benefit-cost ratio of 4.
This is the cut-off point below which no road will get a 60 per cent funding subsidy from Transfund for capital work such as sealing.
The minister has been told quite clearly that if the Far North is left on its own under existing funding programmes, it will never catch up to the rest of New Zealand in terms of roading standards.
Transfund has agreed to consider more help for the Far North but has asked for a formal statement of needs.
