Media Release from Transmission Gully Action Group (Inc.)

The Region’s Lifeline Making Good Progress

The Transmission Gully Action Group says that it has great confidence in the work being undertaken by Transit’s TGM Project Team to scope the region’s road transport lifeline.

Group Chairman Adrian Webster said that the accurate location of an earthquake fault trace was just part of the geotechnical work which has been undertaken as a necessary preliminary to the design of the road.

“We are looking forward to the public release of all this data next year. Only then when all the facts are available will it be possible to determine how much the road will cost. Speculation at this stage is just alarmist,” said Mr Webster.

He said that broad Parliamentary support for TGM was a good indicator that the cost of building this new stretch of the State Highway system would be funded by the Crown. “That’s something which Transit’s own legislation requires.

“The Transit NZ Act sets out quite clearly that the cost of State Highways should be funded nationally. We will be looking to the political parties to affirm this in the lead up to next year’s general election.”

Mr Webster said that the scientific assessments provided almost two years ago about the option of four laning Centennial Highway had ruled it out as far too vulnerable compared to Transmission Gully. “Those assessments revealed the extreme difficulty if not impossibility, of engineering any upgrade between Pukerua Bay and Paekakariki because of the unstable earthquake shattered greywacke which forms the coastal escarpment.”

“The Western Corridor hearings received compelling evidence that any earthquake damage sustained by the Gully road would be able to be repaired within days while the coastal route could be blocked for months,” said Mr Webster. He said this was the final nail in the coffin of the idea that a coastal upgrade was do-able.

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