The Council scored the best possible overall rating for its management of the District’s paths, roads and cycle ways in a recent audit carried out by the New Zealand Transport Agency.

“The Transport Agency’s Audit Investment Report, which was tabled at Council yesterday shows our road network is well managed and in a stable condition,” says Access and Transport Manager, Glen O’Connor.

“The auditors found that our efforts to improve safety, such as our intersection upgrades, revised speed limits and safety campaigns, have been well designed and implemented.”

Mr O’Connor said the report also commended the Council for its strong emphasis on improving the quality of its transport data, which provides information on traffic volumes, safety and other important details about how our District’s roads are functioning.

“Transport data is becoming an increasingly important tool for local councils, who are using it to assess the performance of their transport assets and decide where future investment is needed most.”

“We’ll be working on improving the coverage, quality and usability of our transport data to help us make better informed and more cost effective decisions in the future.”

Mr O’Connor says the NZ Transport Agency regularly audits local councils to ensure they are using central government funding effectively to keep their communities’ roads, footpaths and other transport assets in good shape. The NZ Transport Authority typically contributes about 51% to Council’s land transport costs each year - roughly $5.5m per annum.

“As a Council we put a lot of time and effort into keeping our transport networks safe and up to standard, whether it’s repairing our roads, revising our speed limits, making our intersections safer or expanding our network of shared pathways. We’ll be taking NZTA’s findings into consideration as we get on with our busy programme of work over the next year.”

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