V8 backers challenged to do more groundwork

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Promoters of the V8 supercar series face a daunting raft of demands made yesterday by planning commissioners before racing can be allowed in downtown Auckland.

The international events company IMG and the Auckland City Council said they would try to meet the commissioners' demands for information, rather than having their joint application to run the race rejected out of hand and trying their chances with an early appeal to the Environment Court.

Gathering enough extra information will require extension of the December 31 deadline set by the Australian motorsports body Avesco for the city and IMG to sign a contract with it to hold a three-day race around Victoria Park for each of seven years from April 2006.

IMG's New Zealand head, Dean Calvert, said he had explained the predicament to the chairman of Avesco and been invited to send a written request for more time to that organisation's board.

Neither he nor the city council was prepared to surrender yesterday. They indicated that they were heartened by an apparent softening of opposition by the motorways agency Transit New Zealand.

But Mr Calvert warned that Avesco, while still keen for Auckland to host a New Zealand leg of its series after it leaves Pukekohe next year, did not have unlimited patience.


Transit lawyer Vernon Rive told a panel chaired by chief commissioner David McGregor that Transit had started drawing up a memorandum of understanding with the applicants to assess whether traffic could be managed around the event.

The agency warned the hearing earlier that the circuit including Fanshawe St would have a significant, unacceptable effect on Auckland's motorway system. But chief executive Rick van Barneveld said last night Transit had always wanted to work constructively with the applicants on how to manage "the potential event", without being rushed into a consents hearing.


Mr McGregor said in delivering his panel's decision to adjourn the hearing for more information that a tight contractual timetable did not absolve the applicants from providing enough details to allow a proper assessment of effects of the races.

He said the level of consultation exercised by the applicants had "clearly" been unsatisfactory so far.

He also said the commissioners found it "extraordinary" that Transit and the Auckland and North Shore city councils had not been able to reach consensus in assessing the impact on traffic and measures needed to cope.

Mr McGregor urged their traffic consultants to work together to measure the impact on the region as a whole as well as on roads closerto the race circuit.

The commissioners said other issues the applicants "may wish to address" included the extent to which alternative sites were considered and planning objectives - particularly Transit's proposed widening of the Victoria Park motorway flyover - had been examined.

Auckland City's events committee chairman Scott Milne said he was not ready to throw in the towel.

Further work needed

The commissioners also called for:

* A peer review after criticism of a traffic demand management survey of how many commuters would alter travel plans to fit around street closures.

* More information about the effects of closing the Fanshawe St motorway ramp on North Shore's roading network and on traffic, public transport and pedestrian movements in central Auckland and inner suburbs.

* More attention by the applicants to the effects on businesses near the circuit.

* An assessment of the effects on other users of Victoria Park.