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Rural residents fed-up with seeing unsealed road maintenance and repairs slashed over the last decade have resorted to fixing potholes and clearing culverts themselves, just to keep roads drivable.
A number of business owners and farmers around Wellsford have been filling in potholes, grading roads and digging out ditches and water tables, as they say it takes too long for Auckland Transport (AT) and its contractors to fix problems.
Steve Levet runs Levet Contracting in Worthington Road and Silverhill Quarry in Shepherd Road, and although he actually supplies AT’s contractor with metal to fix local roads, he says it’s often quicker and easier to do the job himself.
“It gets to be embarrassing,” he said. “I’ve graded this road twice and fixed the potholes.
“A number of us have been maintaining our own roads, and it’s not cheap.”
Some of Levet’s neigbours have been using his metal to fill holes outside their properties, a man in Silverhill Road hired a digger to clear out culverts, and Owen Becroft has been grading Bailey Road and the bottom of Silverhill Road for four years.
“If I hadn’t, Bailey Road wouldn’t have been drivable. Everything from buses to trucks have been physically stuck in that road in recent years,” he said.
Many of those doing DIY road repairs have a long history in the business, whether it’s working for contractors or for the former Rodney District Council. They say they all know what needs to be done, but since the district went into the Supercity, budgets, work programmes and even the amount of metal being put on roads have all been cut to the bone.
“When it was Rodney, we had three truck and trailers carting metal full-time and now they’re down to one truck. The budget has been slashed by thousands and yet there are more and more people and vehicles coming in.”
Wellsford Rodney Local Board member and roading engineer Colin Smith has long campaigned for better funding for local roads and has heavily criticised board members who diverted sealing metal roads out of what could be funded by the Rodney Transport Targeted Rate.
He’s now pinning his hopes on new Mayor Wayne Brown’s Letter of Expectation for AT, which was due to be voted on by the Governing Body last Thursday, December 15. The letter specifies ensuring the road maintenance and renewal programme is adequate and supports rural roads, including improvements to rural road maintenance and sealing, and targets to ensure prompt completion of simple road repairs.
“It’s criminal that we have to put up with this. These are the guys paying rates for Auckland, but they’re not seeing anything coming back. One guy in Tapora is paying $64,000 and has nothing to show for it,” Smith said. “All we want is roads and drainage.”
He also suggested that funding for sealing metal roads could come from Council’s environment targeted rate.
“They don’t clear out the water tables and the culverts, and all the aggregate ends up in the paddocks, rivers and the Kaipara, so why don’t they use some of the environment targeted rate to seal roads?”
Smith said AT contractors could only do what their contract allowed them to.
“They always say give us the money and we’ll do the job. Where’s the blockage?” he said. “We’re 100% behind Mayor Brown’s letter.”
