“At the moment, we run our own health and safety [procedures] every morning and night because the locals are aware that the bus will come through in the morning around 7.45am, so they stop at the top of the hill. There are two places they can pull over. They can see me coming so they don’t take evasive action, they stop. They do the same thing in the afternoon, but this only applies to local people.”
He says it is an inferior road that needs attention as soon as possible.
“Not next year or the year after, not even next month. We have slips on that hill that have got, to put it bluntly, pink cones. Now, they will not stop a school bus going down a hill that is probably 50 to 60 metres. The bus would go straight down.”
He asked councillors to find a way to get the road fixed.
“Fix it before some children are killed, because there is no turning back. If you get caught on that hill in a school bus, there is only going to be one result, and we will read about it in the papers. I’m old, and some of these kids are only five or six. I do not want to see them in a box. I don’t want to be in a box myself yet, so I’d just like the council to consider what I’ve said. Thank you for the opportunity of bringing this to a public forum.”
Councillor Grant Boyde asked Bruce if he’d spoken to the council previously about the issue.
Bruce said he had voiced his concerns to various people in the district and now wanted to voice his concerns to the council.
“It’s gotten to the stage [where] someone had to really get up and tell the council what it’s like. It’s bad. It’s not just a pothole in the road.”
Stratford Mayor Neil Volzke thanked Bruce for speaking at the meeting.
“You were very passionate and made it clear what your concerns are.”
At the end of the meeting, councillors discussed the issue. Councillor Amanda Harris said she had spoken to Fulton Hogan about the progress of the road.
“The update to me was, engineers were looking at solutions. There are two solutions they have come up with - to take into the bank or add a retaining wall. The retaining wall was the preferred solution. That’s the information I’ve been told.”
Volzke said the best way forward was to take the concerns to roading manager Steve Bowden so he can look into the area. The concern was put on to ‘matters outstanding’ so the council could keep an eye on the issue.
