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Rural Roads Fund Cut `Unfair'

Posted on: Wednesday, 11 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By ARNOLD, Karen

`We will be protesting this cut most strongly to the Minister of Transport, as well as to Land Transport New Zealand.'Southland District Mayor Frana Cardno THE Southland District Council and its ratepayers will lose more than $200,000 in road maintenance funding from the Government for the 2006-07 financial year.

Mayor Frana Cardno described news of the reduction in Land Transport New Zealand's funding as a most unwelcome Christmas present. "Once again rural New Zealand has been kicked in the teeth by an unfair funding regime," she said.

Land Transport New Zealand uses a funding formula based on land values.

During the 2005-06 financial year, it met 55 percent of the Southland District's road maintenance cost.

Next year, it will meet only 54 percent with the decrease equating to a $204,000 fall in funding.

Land Transport New Zealand chief executive Wayne Donnelly says, in a letter to the council , funding reductions were caused by either land values in the district continuing to increase at a rate faster than the rest of the country or a recent increase in land values relative to the rest of the country.

Mrs Cardno said Southland District property owners already paid the highest roading rates per head of population of any local authority in New Zealand.

"We are running on a treadmill that doesn't even keep us in the same place -- we're going backwards." It was a totally unfair imposition on ratepayers and did not recognise the huge contribution that Southland made to the national economy, she said. "We will be protesting this cut most strongly to the Minister of Transport, as well as to Land Transport New Zealand." District Council chief executive David Adamson urged major road user groups, such as Federated Farmers, to join the council in lobbying for a more equitable method of subsidising roading costs.

"The southern rural industries are in fact paying twice -- once through road user charges and then again through their rates," Mr Adamson said.

Meanwhile, the Invercargill City Council would receive a $50,000 boost to its road maintenance programme during 2006-07.

Works and services director Alan Ballinger said Land Transport New Zealand had increased funding from 59 percent to 60 percent.

However, it was unlikely this year's city-wide revaluation had been taken into account and that was likely to affect the 2007-08 funding assistance rate, he said.

Source: Southland Times, The

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