Big decision 4: Maintaining our roads
Consultation has concluded
Every year people travel more than 520 million kilometres on our local roading network. Over the last 10 years usage has increased over five percent each year, which corresponds with Selwyn’s annual population growth. While our new subdivisions create more traffic, the continuing expansion of Rolleston’s industrial zone and its inland ports are also increasing freight traffic across the network.
We face ongoing challenges in managing levels of service to a standard appropriate for the district and that residents expect us to deliver. To date we have taken the following general approach to managing maintenance and renewal activity funding:
- Seek as much funding as possible from NZTA and match it with local share from General Rates
- Fund any over-expenditure directly, to ensure levels of service do not slip. For 2019/20 this was over $2 million.
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Increase the level of general rate-funded maintenance above the level funded by NZTA
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This option means a higher level of direct maintenance funding by ratepayers, beyond what NZTA provides. The additional work would lower the risk of our roads deteriorating further and needing even more costly repairs at a later stage.
Striking the right balance in funding like this allows us to manage road user expectations for our district.
Cost
Additional $1 million per year
Impact on rates
This option will increase the General Rate, based on a property’s capital value as shown below:
Capital Value $ Annual rate Impact $ 550,000 30 800,000 38 10,000,000 360 Impact on debt
No impact
Option 1 is our preferred option as it allows us to maintain the local roading network based on our needs assessment, and reduces the risk of deterioration which would end up costing more at a later stage.
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Fund maintenance at the level supported by NZTA
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NZTA compares our road performance and conditions to those of other councils across the country and determines what they believe is fair to be funded. However this may not meet the expectations of our road users.
Cost
No additional cost
Impact on rates
No additional impact
Impact on debt
No additional impact
Custom
Custom
