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Auckland Transport is refusing to explain why it plans to rip up a road it sealed just three years ago and replace it with gravel.
It says repair work will start in Staniforth Road “in the next week or so”, where the road is in very poor condition. However, AT won’t say why the short stretch of road was tarsealed in the first place or how much it cost. It is also refusing to say how much will be spent returning the road to gravel.
Staniforth Road resident Richard Mayne says the sealing, although welcome at the time, turned out to be a gross waste of ratepayers’ money with potholes appearing within weeks of the job being finished.
Mayne has a background in civil construction and believes the rapid deterioration in the seal pointed to bad base preparation.
Numerous complaints to Auckland Transport (AT) about the potholes and subsidence on each side the road fell on deaf ears.
Mayne says AT tried to blame a resident for the delay in addressing what he says has become a very dangerous road to drive on.
“My wife had a close call with a rubbish truck and now refuses to drive on the road, and the postie is only delivering mail once a week because she says the road is too dangerous.”
AT confirmed that the road was built on private property, following an historic misalignment. It follows a farm driveway rather than the legal boundary.
“There are many such cases where a road used by the public was historically formed in a different alignment from the surveyed paper road and the formal road legalisation then needs to be worked through with the affected landowners at a later date,” an AT spokesperson said.
Although the owner of the property is prepared to do a land swap so the road does not have to be moved to an easement a few metres to one side of the current road, AT has so far rejected the offer to formalise the swap.
Mayne claims it is also refusing to repair the tar seal until the property owner agrees to put in a drain [through their property] to a watercourse at the bottom of the hill.
AT refused to answer questions about whether or not the contractor had been at fault for the quick deterioration in the road, and why it had taken so long to address residents’ concerns about the state of the road.
Mahurangi Matters has lodged an Official Information Act request about the Staniforth Road work.
