David Shearer

MP for Mt Albert

08 December 2010

Media Statement

Joyce rides roughshod over Waterview communities

Families near the Waterview motorway extension are right to feel angry about Steven Joyce and the New Zealand Transport Agency’s cynical and high handed attitude on the motorway extension through their community, MP for Mt Albert David Shearer said today.

“Waterview community groups have presented many alternatives including cycle links, pedestrian bridges across Oakley Creeks, substitute parks and vehicle exhaust filtering. But all have been ignored by Transport Minister Steven Joyce and the NZTA,” David Shearer said.

“The community has been given a ridiculously short time frame to respond to NZTA’s latest plans.

“They have been given just 20 working days under the new Environmental Protection Authority to go through and comment on 40 volumes of information.

“Some of the submissions need expert advice, but residents who have applied for funding to hire experts will find out only if they are successful after the closing date for submissions.

“If this is how the new process is meant to work, it’s a joke. The community is being steamrollered.

“The government is touting the new EPA process a transparent, open and simpler. In reality it’s just a means of riding roughshod over local concerns,” said David Shearer.

“Just to add to the frustrations, the goalposts keep shifting. When the smokestack to expel fumes over the local kindy was announced earlier this week, the NZTA simply claimed the process is still not finalised.

“Residents were originally told by NZTA that the 100m long operations buildings planned to line Great North Road like a huge wall would be underground away from housing.

“Now the buildings will be six to ten metres high and constructed amongst houses.

“Waterview is a $1.7 billion project yet less than 1 per cent of that will be used to mitigate the impact of the motorway running right through the community.

“The contempt the Government has shown towards the local community is staggering. People’s lives have been turned upside down and the Government doesn’t care.”

ENDS

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