End of the road for the Southern Link?

Nelson Green Party candidate Matt Lawrey is challenging Nick Smith to let voters know whether the Southern Link that the incumbent MP has staked his career on has fallen off the National Party’s multi-billion dollar motorway spending spree.

“Given the weekend announcement that National will again open the nation’s chequebook and spend willy-nilly on 10 other projects in regional New Zealand – but not the Southern Link - the pressure is on Nick Smith to front up about plans for his legacy project,” says Lawrey.

Lawrey says Smith’s obsession with the Southern Link has not only needlessly pitched Nelsonians against each other, it stopped Nelson City Council and NZTA from building a desperately needed waterfront boulevard for pedestrians and cyclists.

Lawrey says the apparent disappearance of NZTA’s Southern Link investigation also raises serious questions such as: Why are we still waiting to hear NZTA’s preferred option for dealing with congestion in Nelson?

“Unlike the National Party, the Greens aren’t afraid of looking at what it will take to prepare New Zealand for its long-term transport needs and ensuring that we include the role of rail in that future and increase the role of public transport.

“The plan we are releasing this week is about making New Zealand’s cities more liveable and easier to get around – a challenge that Nick Smith’s government has avoided for nine long years”.

ENDS

© Scoop Media