Ripping up sealed roads and reverting to gravel because of the damage being done by logging trucks is a move back to the Middle Ages, Jarred Coogan says.
“It’s akin to the McGillicuddy Serious Party’s ‘great leap backwards’,” the Taranaki Federated Farmers executive member says.
New Plymouth District Council (NPDC) is planning to turn a 6km stretch of the sealed Tarata Road back to gravel.
Coogan says doing so would create a serious safety risk and dust nuisance.
“We have a school bus, farmers’ utes and family vehicles currently sharing the road with dozens of 50-tonne fully laden logging juggernauts each day.
“I’m really worried about the risk of a crash or serious accident resulting from this road going back into gravel with a loose stone surface.”
He says the 18 families along the road would also end up with dust coating their washing lines and houses, and water quality will be degraded for those who collect rainwater from their roofs.
“Dust can also cause significant negative impacts on crops and pasture,” says Coogan, who shared his views at a NPDC Long-Term Plan (LTP) meeting on May 2.
Tarata Road might not be the only rural road turned back into gravel.
The council’s LTP states roads associated with forestry movements have not received any investment, resulting in a rapid deterioration of these roads.
“We are changing these roads from sealed to unsealed, which will reduce ongoing costs for forestry roads by a third,” the plan reads.
While the council wants to double investment in transport infrastructure renewal from $146m to $307m over 10 years – a move Federated Farmers applauds –cost inflation will take a huge bite.
NPDC admits the increased spending will, overall, enable it only to maintain existing levels of service.
Elsewhere in the LTP, the current condition of road assets are rated as “average but deteriorating”. Of 1313km of road in the district (966km in rural areas), all but 168km are currently unsealed.
Federated Farmers local government policy specialist Nigel Billings says in his 25 years monitoring the sector, he’s never come across a council planning to rip up a sealed road.
“You’re never going to come back and seal that road again.
“[New Plymouth Mayor] Neil Holdom has solid infrastructure investment credentials – that’s how he got elected.
“So, there’s something very wrong with this sealed-roads-to-gravel picture on the council side.”
Billings says NPDC is by no means the only local authority “caught with its pants down” over roading.
“Investment has been insufficient for years, including from central government. And now that maintenance and renewal costs have ballooned, many councils are finding they just don’t have enough money.”
It’s an echo of the Three Waters infrastructure backlog up and down the country, he says.
“What Federated Farmers are advocating to councillors in many districts is a ‘no-frills’ attitude. It’s time to focus only on those core council responsibilities.”
NPDC’s claims that gravel roads used by heavy trucks will cost one third less than sealed roads to maintain were not accompanied by any evidence, Billings says.
One option for New Plymouth is to look at Wairoa District Council’s move to increase the forestry rates differential, to recognise the costs that industry imposed on other ratepayers, particularly via damage to roads, he says.
As a result of the change, the 2023 rates bill for owners of the 77,000ha of forest in the Wairoa District increased from $1.59m to $2.79m.
“Federated Farmers has pushed for those differentials. It’s not an anti-forestry thing; we’re all about cost-benefit,” Billings says.
“If you’re running a business, and you cost council an awful lot of money, you should pay that cost.”
Milk tankers and cattle trucks take a toll on roads too, but rates bills of $10,000-$15,000 for farms are typical, with a large roading component, because farm land is rated according to its highest ‘best use’.
That’s also the case for kiwifruit growers, who pay on a basis taking in the value of their growing licences, and orchardists.
“Forestry gets away largely scot-free,” Billings says.
“You’ve got land value based on international log prices and that’s useless for any other purpose.”
Billings says other councils are starting to follow Wairoa’s lead, with Stratford District Council the latest to raise forestry rating differentials.
On other fronts, Federated Farmers is encouraged by the New Plymouth council’s LTP.
While it plans to reduce the Uniform Annual General Charge – a move contrary to Federated Farmers’ policy – the council is proposing changes to the differential that will see farmers paying between 2.2 and 20.1% less in general rates in 2024/25.
Federated Farmers have also welcomed NPDC’s intention to accelerate stormwater catchment management planning and investment.
Federated Farmers, New Zealand’s leading independent rural advocacy organisation, has established a news and insights partnership with AgriHQ, the country’s leading rural publisher, to give the farmers of New Zealand a more informed, united and stronger voice. Federated Farmers news and commentary appears each week in its own section of the Farmers Weekly print edition and online.
