Residents’ ire raised by veiled threat to highways

Press, 24 April 1980, Page 1

Residents’ ire raised by veiled threat to highways

Suggestions that the Arthur’s Pass and Haast highways may have to be closed because of multi-million-dollar repair bills drew an angry response from both sides of the Main Divide last evening.

The National Roads Board in Wellington heard yesterday that the cost of repairing damage done by last summer’s “100-year-floods” had Already passed $3.1 million. It was “a matter of national urgency” whether the board could continue to spend so much of its national flood damage allocation to keep the two highways open, members were told.

“We are dealing with entire mountains coming down, and with hillsides complete with forest cover sliding on to roads and into rivers,” said the Deputy Director of Reading (Mr R. B. Fisher).

“The main route from Arthur’s Pass to Otira is running out of room to have a road at all, and an alternative route may have to be considered,” he said.

Mr Fisher said that much of the section of road between the Cook River and Haast had been under continuous repair for six months. Much of the surface was rough and on some sections, the road was , virtually the creek bed. Near the Gates of Haast

the road had been almost completely obliterated by a combination of river scour from below and slips from above, he said. The total cost of repairs to this section had reached $2.6 million, and the total damage to the OtiraArthur’s Pass Route was $400,000. Mr Fisher said that severe flood damage had occurred in the areas earlier in 1979, and some reinstatement work done had since been lost.

He paid tribute to the strenuous efforts and long hours put in to open and repair the roads by contractors and Ministry of Works staff, at times in dangerous circumstances.

Rainfall on the West Coast in December last year and January this year was between 150 per cent and 400 per cent above normal. Both the Arthur’s Pass and Haast highways had been closed several times as hillsides which had previously shed heavy rain “opened up,” the board was told.

The resident engineer of the Ministry of Works and Development at Haast had said that he was unable to guarantee that any repairs there would be permanent. Any. move to close the Arthur’s Pass highway would be strongly opposed by West Coasters, and particularly by residents of Greymoiith and Hokitika, said the Town Clerk of Greymouth (Mr B. P. Moreton) last evening. "I am. angry. about the

whole idea; It is what usually happens to the West. Coast — too much value being put on money instead of people,” said Mr Moreton. “Arthur’s Pass was used in the days of coaches and horses, and so they should be able to keep it open now,” he said. Mr Moreton said that it was essential for West Coasters to have access to Christchurch via the pass. The trip from Greymouth to Christchurch would take at least an hour longer via the Lewis Pass, and more than that for Hokitika residents.

“The Coast has supplied more than its share of the national cake for years, with gold and coal and so on, and we will fight this one,” he said.

Closing either the Arthur’s Pass or Haast highways would be a “huge set-back to tourism and the entire South Island,” said the chief executive of the South Island Promotion Association (Mr M. F. Foate) in Christchurch.

“They are both important arterial roads. 1 am. surprised that the possibility of closing them has even’ been suggested, and we would oppose it strongly,” he said. The general manager of the Automobile Association- Canterbury (Mr E. S. Palliser) said that it would be a “real tragedy” for the tourist industry if the Haast Road were closed.