Authority Anxious For Corridor To Be Defined

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31206, 2 November 1966, Page 12

Authority Anxious For Corridor To Be Defined

The Regional Planning Authority will make an urgent request to the National Roads Board to outline the corridor in the St. Albans section of the proposed Northern Motorway.

The authority decided this yesterday after discussing a letter f rom the town clerk-of the Christchurch City Council (Mr C. S. Bowie) which said that the council had approved the report on the northern motorway. Mr Bowie said the council now awaited the board’s request for an interim corridor for control of development to be included in the council’s undisclosed scheme. In a preliminary report on the programming of road improvements the director of planning (Mr C. B. Millar) said construction dates for motorways were critical. “The major element of new construction in the plan is the motorways which will become the replacement for the present State highways,” he said. Mr Millar referred to a survey published by the board in 1963 which showed that the estimated expenditure on motorways for Christchurch up to 1973 was £2.55 million, but made no provision for urban motorway construction or urban property acquisition. “The present lack of funds for Christchurch urban motorways including property acquisition appears to be the consequence of a lack of understanding of the fundamental role of the motorways in the Master .Transportation Plan and the need for some urban lengths to be constructed before 1973 with property acquisition before 1970,” he said.

Mr Millar sajd the latest board survey accepted the need for 14.5 miles of northern motorway and 3.25 miles of southern motorway. To achieve this £15.2 million had been allocated for expenditure by 1976. “It appears that these recently announced provisions nearly meet a satisfactory needs programme for the Master Transportation Plan State highways requirements up to 1976,” he said. “On preliminary consideration, however, it appears that inadequate finance—only £650,000 between 1967 and 1970—is proposed for land purchase over the first few years of the period. “As funds will not be available until a programme is agreed, this next step in developing the plan has become extremely urgent. “A Master Transportation Plan is worth nothing unless it is implemented. Should

unnecessary congestion occur in any part of the Christchurch region it will be because the road authorities have failed either in securing the finance or in determining a policy on priority and construction to progressively effect the work and implement the plan,” he said.