Road construction costs soar

Press, 25 March 1980, Page 7

Road construction costs soar

Wellington reporter Road construction costs in New Zealand will probably have risen by 25 per cent in the year to March 31, and the National Roads Board expects this to have a devastating effect on future road building.

There is doubt that the 1980-81 budget of the board will have any funds available for construction except for projects already begun. This information is contained in the December construction cost index published by the Ministry

of Works and Development. It showed an increase of 21.6 per cent for the 12 months ended December 30, 1979, which the Director of Reading (Mr F. A. Langbein) described as being “considerably higher than expected. “The trends, if con--tinued, will seriously affect reading programmes in the coming financial year,” he said. “Although there may. be some delays before this increase has to be paid for, it means that roading costs for the March year will probably have risen by 25 per cent.” As maintenance could not be relaxed from its present level, it meant there would be almost no construction work undertaken in 1980-81. The cost index is in the

form of indices every three months. The index was 1002 at December, 1978; 1027 at March, 1979; 1064 at June, 1979; 1119 at September, 1979; and 1219 at December, 1979. Within the over-all index, the labour prices index rose from 1197 in December, 1978, to 1415 in December, 1979; the plant price index rose from 763 in December 1978, to 979 in December, 1979; and the materials price index rose from 692 in December, 1978, to 808 in December, 1979. Overall, the movement in the b.bour index was 18.21 per cent, 16.76 per cent for materials, and 28.31 per cent for plant. The National Roads Board was particularly worried about the rise in plant costs.