N.R.B.’s flood fund half spent within six weeks

Press, 16 May 1985, Page 5

N.R.B.’s flood fund half spent within six weeks

PA Wellington Almost half of the $l3 million fund set aside to repair flood damage to main highways has been spent in the first six weeks of the financial year. Already $6.1 million had been paid out after floods in the Thames-Coromandel area and on the NapierTaupo Road, said the Ministry of Works’ Assistant Director of Reading, Dr Robin Dunlop yesterday. Flood-fund figures were presented to yesterday’s meeting of the National Roads Board. They showed payments that were just under double those at the same time last year—s3.B million.

Dr Dunlop said the board

spent money from this year’s fund to repair damage that happened late last financial year, as well as during April. Last month the board approved flood-repair damage payments of $2 million and carried a further $4 million over from last financial year.

In April last year the board spend $223,000 on repairing flood damage, and carried over about $3.6 million in flood costs from the 1983-84 financial year.

Dr Dunlop said this year the board almost paid in one month its total spending on flood repair for the whole of the last financial year, when $7.9 million was spent. But last year’s flood bill was the lowest for

many years. If all the $l3 million from this year’s flood fund were spent and further bills came in for highway repair, Dr Dunlop said the money would have to be paid.

There was a general fund of $4OO million and extra flood repair bills could be drawn from that by stopping other scheduled work, or the books could be balanced by paying for damage from next year’s budget. Dr Dunlop said he had no reports so far about damage to main highways by this week’s storm, which was lashing Wellington with wind and rain and dumping snow on parts of the South Island and the central plateau of the North Island, closing the Desert Road.