Editorial: Rough ride in store for drivers

Rotorua people have been told they will have to accept a lower standard of roading over the coming years.

Anyone who lives on any road a lot of trucks use will know about never-ending potholes and the hazard these can create for motorists if they don't get fixed promptly.

We've also had local streets and roads being resealed which many people, while not experts, might consider weren't yet in need of repair but which were done regardless - one assumes to ensure annual funding allocations are used up so that more will be forthcoming.

It seems the latter no longer applies. Our Rotorua District Council says funding from the New Zealand Transport Agency for the next three years falls $2.5 million short of what it estimates is needed and that will see some roads going to pot (or potholes) because there won't be the money to maintain them.

The council says it will have to review all planned roading activities for the next three years and that includes footpath maintenance, vegetation control, signage, street sweeping, road marking and street lighting. Pavement "rehabilitation", resealing, drainage, kerbing and channelling may also need to be reduced to some extent.

Good roads are among the most basic of needs when it comes to infrastructure and a reduction of funding for this, in a district in desperate need of an economic upturn and population growth, could be disastrous. Major roading projects planned for the future have already been put on the funding backburner. Now it seems even the basic needs won't be met and the council says the district's resealing programme will be cut for the second year running.

Councils around the country, including here, are under fire for rates changes and increases, and struggling under the debt they have already incurred. We seem to be going backwards. Perhaps cutting back funding for roads is just another way the Government is pushing councils to stick to what it says are their core functions, forcing them to review other areas ratepayers currently fund - crime prevention, road safety campaigns, tourism, bidding for events and economic development.