My Account
Auckland Transport (AT) has cut regional transport and road safety funding to the bone as a result of Council’s Emergency Budget, with just over $286,000 available for Rodney Local Board projects this financial year — down from almost $5 million that was in place before Covid-19.
In March, the Board’s transport capital fund stood at around $2.9million and the community safety fund was just over $2 million, but the Emergency Budget has effectively wiped the slate clean — and taken countless footpath and road safety projects with it.
However, north Rodney may have escaped relatively lightly, since all its transport capital fund projects were for new footpaths, which the Board is looking to transfer to its transport targeted rate budget. Board chair Phelan Pirrie says that without the extra rate, the paths in the Warkworth and Wellsford area would just have disappeared for at least three years.
Community safety fund projects, such as new pedestrian crossings in Woodcocks Road, Warkworth and at Matakana, have also been put on ice by AT, but Mr Pirrie remains optimistic that these will still happen as soon as any funding becomes available, since they are virtually “shovel-ready”.
“I think they’re going to happen, they stand a pretty good chance. They all rate very highly with AT,” he says. “They’ve been consulted, costed and designed.”
Board members are due to discuss how to prioritise its revised transport budget at an internal workshop and then at its next monthly meeting, on October 21. Mr Pirrie says Covid-19 has shown that it is vital to spend any available funds quickly, as they could be taken away at any time.
