Pathways deserve some Council funding

By Ras Sutherland

So “how” do we go about getting this proposed pathway, from Leigh to Warkworth including Snells Beach, developed? Based on experience elsewhere in NZ, the answer is through a Council-community partnership in which each has a clear role and a shared goal. There are various models for who does what and who pays but the key right now is to establish a vehicle that can make it happen.

In the local situation here, the community can provide access across private lands and several property owners are already involved in this. Council could provide access along public land whether on road verge, paper roads, certain reserve land and so on. This will all cost money but the Community has some avenues to explore to raise the funds for its part. These range from fundraising events such as last year’s successful Fruitloop which is being held again on March 3, through to applying for grants from various trusts and private/government funding agencies.
For Council, the situation is a little more complex. There is a commonly held view that this spending on pathways is somewhat frivolous and really should be paid for by walkers/cyclists. This probably arises from the misconception that all roads are paid for by motorists through the fuel tax and road user charges, whereas cyclists and walkers pay nothing and therefore have no ‘rights’. There is some foundation to this belief because the state highways are funded by NZTA and NZTA does get its funds from those motorist charges. However, the remainder of roading work is determined by and funded by Council, albeit with some subsidy from NZTA. So this ‘other’ roading is actually funded in the main from rates.

In this area of East Rodney, all of the roading east of SH1 is funded wholly or partly from rates. As such, it seems reasonable that some small part of ratepayer funding should be applied to routes that potentially benefit everyone. As this area continues to evolve from a largely rural one to a more heavily populated and visited one, the need for facilities such as footpaths and pathways grows and we need to continue to review where spending is applied. This is not to deny the need to maintain and improve roading but maybe to move the balance a little. There are also other funds that Council can allocate to such a project. That is, Council can choose to invest more into a pathway connecting our communities and quickly bring about the benefits outlined previously. We all know that Councils are pressured to fund many ‘pet’ projects yet control the rates burden, but using the model above, these pathways could be constructed with relatively minor Council funding.

But it will require a significant amount of commitment to enable progress. To build on the great work done on pathways by various groups, I have proposed to the Local Board that we formalise a Council-community partnership.

Published 18 January 2012