16 July 2013

[statement from David Thornton]

CBG report on transport funding a failure – nothing new except heavy rates hikes.

Council should reconsider transport programme.

Auckland ratepayers have paid $1.5 million for a mixed group of lobbyists to produce proposals for how the Council could raise an additional $400 million a year for the next 30 years to pay for the transport requirements set out in the Auckland Plan.

The report from the Consensus Building Group fails to introduce any new solutions to the question of funding the so-called ‘funding gap’ of $12 billion.

Nor does it suggest any new proposals to reduce congestion on Auckland’s roads.

The list of options for funding has already been considered many times over, and every time the conclusions reached inevitably listed tolls, congestion charging, and fuel tax as the main source of funding.

The CBG report reaches the same conclusion – but with the addition of council rates as a significant source in the early stages of filling the ‘funding gap’.

Rates are an easy target, until the ratepayers get really angry, such as they did 10 years ago with the Regional Ratepayers Rebellion.

But lenders of the huge capital required for these big projects require certainty of the funding source, and council rates are the prime source for such certainty an underlying guarantee for loans.

The failure of the CBG to come out with anything new, and the potential for ratepayer unrest in the event of major rate rises, leaves the sensible alternative of sending the whole transport programme back for reconsideration.

This should include putting the Central Rail Link on the back burner, and support the government-funded projects including the next Harbour Crossing and the major east-west projects in the couth of the city.

ends

© Scoop Media