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Wellsford’s unpopular clay paver footpaths could end up being replaced with concrete using funding from Rodney Local Board’s transport targeted rate.
After hearing that Auckland Transport (AT) didn’t think the path tiles needed replacing and had no funds to do it anyway, Wellsford member Colin Smith suggested using what was left in the town’s targeted rate fund – $1.3 million.
At the monthly board meeting on September 18, Smith asked members to support his request that funding to be used towards the replacement of the yellow clay pavers along Rodney Street with concrete and that AT cover any shortfall, if required.
Members had earlier received a detailed assessment of the footpaths from AT, which concluded that the footpaths were in acceptable condition, with only 9 per cent of the surface area needing repairs, and that their ‘slip resistance’ was also acceptable and typical for pavers of that type.
“The recent condition assessment of the Wellsford town centre footpaths show that the footpaths are in acceptable condition,” the report said.
“Out of the 15 town centres tested, the Wellsford footpath pavers had one of the highest slip resistance test results for town centres with clay pavers.”
AT also queried a cost estimate obtained by Smith from a local contractor to resurface the footpaths with concrete, which was less than half the amount quoted by AT’s contractor.
“The estimate did not provide a breakdown of the quantities allowed for and, as such, it is difficult to validate the quantity of work,” AT said.
Instead of replacing the pavement with concrete, AT instead proposed spending $50,000 on repairs.
However, Smith maintained they still needed replacing and instead suggested using the targeted transport rate money to do the job, which members supported.
Smith, together with local residents and businesses, has been campaigning for several years to have the pavers replaced due to regular falls and slips by pedestrians, especially in wet weather.
He said after the meeting there was no point AT spending $50,000 on repairs when Wellsford still wanted the pavers replaced, regardless of AT’s view that it wasn’t necessary.
“AT seems to have gone outside our remit,” he said. “Why spend that amount of money fixing something we’re only going to pull out?”
The controversial herringbone bricks were laid down in 1999-2000 by Rodney District Council, having been pulled out of footpaths in Orewa.
“AT talks about this being a capital project – it’s not,” Smith said. “The capital project was in Orewa, then Wellsford, more than 20 years ago.”
He added that people were still slipping over on the paths, with the latest incident happening just last week, on Wednesday, September 25.
“A lot of these incidents go unreported. Do we have to wait for a death before something gets done?” Smith said. “Those pavers need pulling out, no matter what AT thinks.”
