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The long-awaited Hill Street intersection upgrade in Warkworth will be one of the casualties of the government’s decision to cancel the Regional Fuel Tax (RFT) on July 1.
In an exclusive interview with Mahurangi Matters on February 9, Mayor Wayne Brown said it was likely that Hill Street would be on the list of projects affected. This was later confirmed by the mayor’s office.
One Mahurangi co-chair Dave Stott said that in light of the fuel tax decision, he thought the chances of Hill Street proceeding were “pretty slim”.
“But I had hoped I’d be wrong,” he said.
“When you see some of the high priority projects that have been put on hold, my gut feeling was that it [Hill Street] would probably be axed.”
The project has been on council and government drawing boards for decades. The redesign was finally agreed to late last year and there were hopes construction might start later this year. The $20 million project was being funded jointly by government and Auckland Council from the Regional Land Transport Programme 2021-2031. It is council’s share that is now in jeopardy.
Stott hoped more information would be forthcoming at the quarterly Infrastructure Forum meeting in Warkworth on March 1.
The intersection upgrade and a new wastewater pipeline from development to the north of the town to Lucy Moore Park were meant to happen concurrently, to save money and reduce the amount of disruption for the public.
Stott said he couldn’t see Watercare delaying the wastewater project, so he hoped that the sense of doing these two projects together might give Hill Street some priority.
Kaipara ki Mahurangi MP Chris Penk said the removal the Regional Fuel Tax did not imply “anything whatsoever” about the Hill Street redesign work.
“We’ve made it clear that other revenue streams will be available to continue important transport works,” he says.
But Mayor Brown says the government’s decision creates significant funding uncertainty for a large portion of Auckland Transport’s capital programme.
He has asked Auckland Transport to pause work on programmes and projects that are earmarked to be partially RFT-funded, where construction contracts have not been executed, including consultant or contractor spend. This includes the Great North Road cycleway, and other projects in the safety and cycleway programme, and the unsealed road improvement programme.
AT has also been asked to review all RFT-funded projects where construction contracts have been executed to assess options for, and costs of, deferring, cancelling or re-scoping these projects.
“Auckland Transport should use this opportunity to reconsider how it can do things better, faster and cheaper,” Brown says.
On the question of unsealed roads, the Mayor said that the $124 million currently earmarked in the draft Long-term Plan 2024-2034 for unsealed road improvements, would be reviewed in light of the RFT decision.
However, he added that unlike previous years when the funds were disproportionately weighted to be spent at the end of the decade, at least half of the budget would be spent in the first five years.
The draft plan, which sets out what council hopes to achieve over the next 10 years and how it will be funded will be open public comment from February 28.
