Viewpoint – Big wins for Rodney

This month, I invited Mayor Wayne Brown to visit Warkworth to view first-hand the roading and water infrastructure challenges our area is facing. More than $249 million is to be spent in Warkworth and Snells Beach to build the required fresh water and sewage infrastructure ahead of housing growth.

Accordingly, the Mayor was keen to meet with retailers on Queen and Elizabeth Streets to hear their concerns regarding the disruption the Watercare proposal to install required sewage pipes along these streets will cause. Their message was clear. They feel too much is at stake, including the loss of jobs and livelihoods, by digging along these street routes. There is also the disruption to the wider community if these roads are partially closed for a year, or longer.

The Mayor agreed to support the community and is challenging Watercare to find an alternative route.

This is good news. However, due to the way the Supercity is set up, the Mayor cannot directly instruct Watercare what to do, but he is trying to help the retailers.

What Mayor Wayne Brown can control is Auckland Council’s 10 Year Budget, which sets the future direction for Auckland.

Last month, this budget was successfully voted through and it included a number of major wins for Rodney residents and ratepayers. For example, there has been a massive win for rural ratepayers.

Approved in the budget was $124.6 million for the long overdue fixes for unsealed roads, including sealing. As well as this, additional money has been allocated by Auckland Transport to improve the ongoing maintenance service levels. Instead of just the one grading crew to cover the entire Rodney area, there will now be five grading crews.

This means we should soon start to see a dramatic boost to the quality and safety of our unsealed roads. Remember to still log a job request with Auckland Transport if there is an urgent repair required on your unsealed or sealed road.

Our local townships have also been pushing hard to have more of our rates spent back locally. So in addition to the increase in the spending of rates back into improving local roading, the Rodney Local Board has received a massive funding increase of $48.5 million for the next three years to further support important community programmes. This is a win for our local communities and volunteers across Mahurangi, Wellsford and Puhoi. Plus on top of that, an additional increase of $102.7 million for building new, and restoring old, council facilities such as toilets and community halls.

No other local board across Auckland received such a dramatic increase in funding. The final fixing of the Hill Street intersection is fully funded with $19.7 million approved as part of the overall transport portion of the approved budget. Concerned about the cost-of-living crisis, I was the only councillor to vote against increasing any of the fees Auckland Council can charge, including those for dairy farm inspections.