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Footpath madness
Have you ever wondered what the actual cost of concrete footpaths are?
The Rodney Local Board allocated $24.07 million to design and construct 30 footpaths across Kumeū, Dairy Flat, Wellsford and Warkworth subdivisions. The project will result in 10 kilometres of new pedestrian access, significantly improving connectivity.
Yep…. $2.4 million per km.
I wonder what the true cost actually is.
This is sheer madness. While we all support more footpaths, the price is beyond ridiculous. The Local Board has lost its way.
Michael Lorimer, Rodney
Rodney Local Board chair Brent Bailey responded: Our Rodney Local Board Transport Targeted Rate is delivering footpaths in areas that have high pedestrian and housing demands. The costs cover a lot more than just concrete paths. Most areas require significant drainage as the road corridors have unformed berms and drains. This work helps reduce flooding and improves conditions for walking and driving. In built-up environments, designers and contractors work closely with residents, businesses and schools to ensure continued and improved access. There are costs for earthworks, kerb and channel work, footpath construction, consents and traffic management. And that doesn’t include sites that need ancillary infrastructure like retaining walls and long footbridges. The projects are complex and being delivered to a high standard by Auckland Transport and local contractors.
Losing our identity
The article about the eight-week closure for bridge renewals (MM, Jun10) caught my eye. I first wondered where this closure was and then I read that it was on West Coast Road, Glennies Bridge and Stoney Creek Bridge, which are actually in the centre of the Ahuroa district. But according to the published map in the paper, they are now called Makarau and the Makarau district extends as far as Ahuroa-West Coast Road. I’ve got to wonder why this is.
I was raised in Ahuroa, went to school there and spent over 30 years of my early life there.
Ahuroa district, as I know it, extends three or four kilometres west of the fire station, then onto Araparera district, from there on to Kakanui district and then over the hill to the Makarau River and bridge, which denotes the start of that district.
Makarau is about a 25 to 30-minute drive from Ahuroa.
Is this the work of some demented, uninformed boffin in a high rise in Auckland? If so, then get it right – Ahuroa deserves better than this! Give it its full identity back.
I don’t know where our local board stands on this. Maybe they are unfamiliar as to the way things were and should be, or just disinterested.
Ahuroa as I knew it was a proud, hard-working and close-knit farming community, which I’m led to believe still mostly exists today.
Put a stop to this bureaucratic nonsense and give the area back its rightful name that it’s had for well over 100 years.
Mervyn Bayer, Snells Beach
Seawall irony
The irony of commissioner approvals for illegal structures on council land and the seabed (MM, Jun 24) is that the successful applicants caused the erosion they claim to be preventing by removing all natural coastal and marine vegetation to make pretty, sandy, sterile beaches adjacent to green lawns.
One does not have to walk far along the coastal reserve to see that where the vegetation has been protected, there is no erosion and there is an abundance of bird and marine life. Rewarding environmental vandalism in this way will compromise the Auckland Council’s Coastal Plans to deal with sea level rise.
The sea will have the last word, however, as it rises and destroys these puny constructions and covers the adjacent land and properties.
Elizabeth Foster, Whangateau
Half a path
I am writing as a resident of Albert Street in Leigh. A situation that has taken place in our street – we were told that a footpath would be built and we were shown a printout of the path only going halfway up the road.
My neighbour and I immediately started ringing both Auckland Transport and Rodney Local Board, only to be told it was not their problem.
We emailed local council representatives but never heard back, and recently it was reported that the footpath in Albert Street Leigh had been completed.
However, to the ratepayers who live at the top of the road, we feel that we have been let down, as we have to walk down the road to get to the footpath.
Clive Mathers, Leigh
Rodney Local Board chair Brent Bailey responded: The Albert Street footpath in Leigh has been built with funding from the Rodney Local Board Transport Targeted Rate. The new footpath has been built on one side of the road and is used by the bowling club, to access the tennis courts, the walkway to Seaview Road and Leigh School, which is opposite. The footpath ends here because extending it further requires more extensive work and expense, owing to the steeper gradient along this section of the road and the impact this work will have on berms and driveways.
