The Green Party has accused the Transport Agency of using “strong-arm tactics” against the Wellington City Council to force through
inappropriate roading projects for the city.
There have been reports that the agency was to send a letter to the council asking for a definitive position on the agency’s $2.4 billion roading programme. The reports say the funding may go to roading projects outside of Wellington if the council fails to fully support the package.
But Green Party Co-Leader, Dr Russell Norman, says it was inappropriate for public servants to “attack” democratically elected local body representatives.
“This government plans to ram through its uneconomic motorways at any cost and ignore the people of Wellington who voted in a mayor on a strong public transport platform,” Norman says.
“We now see the New Zealand Transport Agency wade into local body politics in Wellington, to bully the council into embracing a dubious project before its details have become public.”
And the Greens are concerned the motorway options proposed by the government and the NZTA, such as the planned flyover at the Basin Reserve, the Mt Victoria Tunnels and the four-laning of Ruahine Street in Hataitai, have not gone to public consultation.
“Now the NZTA wants the Wellington City Council to formally commit to whatever the motorway builders have planned for the city, before their plans have become public, and before it has heard the public’s views on the impact these projects will have on the city,” Norman says.
But the Wellington Employers’ Chamber of Commerce has reiterated its support for the proposed Levin to Wellington Airport roading investment and is concerned city councillors will jeopardise the project.
Chamber Chief Executive, Ken Harris says business and the community as a whole supports the project and the city council needs to make an “unequivocal statement” that it welcomes the funding or risk losing it.
“It would be disastrous if Wellington’s $2.5 billion of government transport investment was lost,” Harris says.  “It has been allocated to Wellington and now is not the time for political point scoring or it will be lost.”
A city council spokesman told Capital Times yesterday no letter had yet been received from the Transport Agency but the mayor had already confirmed the council supported the agency’s roading package. The spokesman said that Mayor Wade-Brown had written to the agency in March confirming the council’s support for its roading plan.