27 June 2006

Council reduces its kerb and channel renewal programme

Christchurch City Council has reduced its kerb and channel renewal programme by $5.1 million for 2006/07. The change follows a review by Land Transport New Zealand (LTNZ) of the 43 projects planned for kerb and channel renewal.

Councillors were told today at a seminar that LTNZ had identified that the programme of work the Council submitted for 2006/07 (the year starting 1 July) did not comply with national funding guidelines, in particular the kerb and channel renewal programme.

“LTNZ’s issue was that we weren’t always deciding jobs on the state of the kerb and channel,” says Chris Kerr, the Council’s acting manager of transport and city streets.

“Christchurch City Council has had a policy of replacing the older-style deep channel when, in some cases, it is still in reasonable order and doing its job. LTNZ says priority must be on how well a street’s kerb and channel is performing.”

LTNZ had asked for a revised programme that maintains the total network, focuses on traffic-carrying routes, has a mix of dish-and-flat-channel renewal and reduces the cost per metre of channel renewal projects.

Of the projects the Council had planned for 2006/07, 25 will go ahead. Twelve meet LTNZ funding criteria, while 13 are committed and will proceed without LTNZ funding.

The remaining 18 projects are not proceeding even though in some cases residents have been sent preliminary letters advising them that the work in their street was in the coming year’s works programme. These projects will be re-programmed to future years.

The amount of kilometres of kerb and channel renewal over the next two years will be less than that spelt out in the draft version of the Council’s 2006-16 long-term community plan. This will be made up in the remaining eight years of the plan.

ENDS
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