Heaton St works choice opposed

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 4

Heaton St works choice opposed

An attempt to gain early approval for a $365,000 Heaton Street reconstruction project may become a Christchurch” City Council issue. The project is among five street jobs totalling $825,000. Each year, some streetworks projects are approved ahead of budget talks to ensure continuous work for council construction staff during the early months of the new financial year. But some councillors are questioning whether Merivale’s Heaton Street should have a high priority without being pitted against other suburban streets during the normal budget process. Cr H. A. Clark told the council's works and traffic committee yesterday that he would seek a deletion of Heaton Street from the early project list. Even though an investigation has shown that Heaton Street needs major reconstruction work, this busy minor arterial road is more subject to scrutiny for two reasons — the Mayor of Christchurch, Sir Hamish Hay. lives there, and the street is in the mainly affluent West Ward, a Citizens' Association stfonghold. Heaton Street has been moving up a priority list for some years, but it was studied closely last year after 44 residents signed a petition about its condition.

Sir Hamish was not involved in the petition or a later staff report. Correction of the streets shape would not overcome its basic problems, said the report. Mr R. I. J. Bloxham. who helped organise the petition and who wrote a covering letter for it. said that vibrations from heavy traffic use of the street had cracked the foundations of his house. Proposed reconstruction work included in a provisional programme approved by the National Roads Board for 1983-84, would be done between Papanui Road and Rossall Street. It would involve excavation of the roadway and new kerbs, channels, and paths. Other streets in the early list, and their reconstruction costs, are Dyers Road ($145,000). Salisbury Street ($210,000 for two sections), and Wordsworth Street ($105,000). Cr Clark said he would like to see work done "in a number of other places" before Heaton Street. Council engineers said that detailed investigations, to determine exactly what type of overlay or reconstruction would be required in other suburban streets, had not been done yet. Cr Clark said that the five streets were “really escaping that very essential process” of setting budget priorities.

■'l think it is a bit petty to pick on just Heaton Street in particular." said Cr Geoff Stone. "For obvious reasons, it looks even pettier." But he said that the ability of the committee to determine whether those streets should have the highest priority was an important issue. “I personally resent that five streets can escape the priority process." he said. Cr D. C. Close, the committee's chairman.' said he did not think any of the listed streets would have any problem “clearing the budget hurdle" later this year. They were “convenient priorities" at this point because required survey work had already been done on them. In the case of Heaton Street, that work was done last year to determine what response should be made to the petition, engineers said. The streetworks engineer. Mr B. H. Scott, said the City Council wanted reconstruction work to be spread among the inner city, the Waltham industrial area, and suburban streets. Cr Clark said that none of the listed streets were "suburban” in terms of being local streets. Cr Close said he agreed that the Heaton Street surface was “a good deal better than others," but, he accepted that its condition was bad under the surface.