18 April 2005

Stalled V8 race is doomed

The Wellington City Council's announcement this afternoon that the V8 race will have to be submitted to a resource consent process is the final nail in the proposal's coffin, the Green Party says.

"I'm confident that when its social and environmental impacts are taken into account, the Council won't be able to get resource consent for the V8 race," the Green Party's Wellington Transport Spokesperson Sue Kedgley said.

"The Auckland race failed to get resource consent on the grounds of disruption and noise. The same issues will see any resource consent application for a Wellington race fail.

"This announcement is therefore great news for Wellingtonians because the race would have imposed a huge cost on our city economically, environmentally and socially."

However, Ms Kedgley said the Council had treated Wellingtonians with contempt over the public consultation process for the race.

"It is shocking that the Council would put Wellington through a month-long public consultation process only to then completely scrap it because of issues it had known about beforehand.

"The boulevarding of Jervois Quay and the placement of pit stops along the proposed race route were factors known to the Council well before the proposal was put to the public. Wellingtonians deserve an explanation as to why it has it taken until the day the consultation ends to work out that the proposed route is not feasible.

"Over 10,000 people took the trouble to make submissions about the race, only to be told that they have wasted their time. This has been shoddily managed from start to finish, and serious questions need to be answered," said Ms Kedgley.

ENDS

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