Media Release – for immediate release

June 23 2011

Contractors Welcome State Highway Classification System – But Warn Local Roads Must Not Be Forgotten

The New Zealand Contractors’ Federation has warned that local roads must not become a “poor relation” compared to state highways.

Federation Chief Executive Jeremy Sole welcomed the announcement of the new State Highway classification system and said the federation is supportive of this initiative as it offers great potential to target safety and maintenance issues.

However, Mr Sole said it is also important to focus on contribution to GDP as well as traffic volumes and in this respect it is essential to keep up maintenance of the local roads which enable primary products to reach main routes.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce said this week that the classification system showed that a small number of highways carry the bulk of traffic and highlighted the social and economic importance of ensuring the key parts of the network in highest demand are upgraded.

“Some local roads are also significant contributors to the country’s GDP with domestic and export products from farm and forest travelling over them and it’s important the value of that contribution is recognised when classifying roads,” said Mr Sole

“For instance, many roads in Southland, constructed to low specifications in the 1960s, are now falling apart, partly due to increasingly intensive logging and dairy activity.

“If these local and rural roads continue to deteriorate then transport costs will increase, not least through increased wear and tear on vehicles, and the cost of transport to aggregation points will increase exponentially.”

ENDS

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