Manawatū highway's $200m cost blow-out shows need for toll - minister

Transport minister Simeon Brown is continuing to blame the previous government for a cost blow-out on the new highway between Manawatū and Tararua in the lower North Island.

Brown says the overspend is one reason a toll is proposed for the road, due to open mid next year.

But the Labour Party's transport spokesman says he is not impressed with Brown's reasoning, and neither are the locals living in the shadow of the road.

Brown told RNZ the 11.5 kilometre highway over the Ruahine Range was now expected to cost $824.1 million, up from the $620m budgeted when construction began four years ago.

He said the blow-out happened under the previous Labour and Labour-led governments.

"The cost blow-out is due to a number of factors, including the high inflationary environment, supply chain issues, and the previous government's late addition of a shared user path across the length of the project.

"This affected the Parahaki River Bridge design, increasing the complexity and cost of the structure."

The initial design for the road did not include this path, but it was added by the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.

"Due to overruns with this project, along with other demands on the National Land Transport Fund, tolling is being considered by NZTA for this particular corridor to help cover this cost increase from those who use this road, while those who choose not to pay will have two free alternatives," Brown said.

The alternatives are the Saddle Road and the Pahīatua Track, which motorists have been forced to use since 2017, when State Highway 3 through the Manawatū Gorge closed due to rockfall.

Saddle Road is being treated as a state highway until the new road opens, before it returns to the Tararua District Council's control.

This has left the council unhappy that it would have to pay for higher maintenance costs if more vehicles use it to avoid the toll, which is proposed for $4.30 a trip for a light vehicle and $8.60 for a truck.

Tararua district mayor Tracey Collis said she was surprised to hear of the blow-out, but did not think it was a reason to impose tolls at the 11th hour.

"I was questioning which roading projects had come in on budget. Transmission Gully was hugely over budget," she said.

"And this road was built during Covid. That there is tough in itself when you're got people that were required to have seven days off [if they tested positive], and they've made fantastic progress."

Board minutes showed NZTA approved an extra $165m for the project in May.

Residents and businesspeople RNZ spoke to in Woodville agreed with Collis that cost overruns were not a reason to introduce a toll.

"The cost is the first I've heard of that. I couldn't believe them as far as I could kick them, to be honest," Kevin Ashwell said.

"Every job always works our dearer than what the original price is, so that's just BS," said another man.

The cost blow-out came to light in parliament last week when Brown was questioned by Labour transport spokesman Tangi Utikere.

"The reality is the tolling proposal has been put out as a way to recover some of those revenues in order to protect those other parts of the country which need road maintenance and new infrastructure being built in them," Brown said.

Utikere, also the MP for Palmerston North, just a few kilometres from the new road, said the revelation of an overrun was convenient when a proposed toll had just been announced.

"There was no suggestion of a tolling opportunity at any stage when this was consulted with," he told RNZ.

"The folks of the Manawatū, Tararua, Wairarapa and central Hawke's Bay should not be stung with a toll in order to meet that particular cost."

The NZ Transport Agency said the $620m budget was set in early 2021, and since then costs rose on large construction projects.

As well as the reasons Brown gave, it pointed also to difficulties in sourcing "compliant aggregate" for the new road's upper layer of pavement.

Meanwhile, the Tararua District Council is pushing ahead with its Stop the Toll Campaign, which encourages people to make a submission in opposition ahead of public consultation closing on 7 October.

"Every person you meet, the first thing they're wanting to talk about is the toll, the unfairness," Collis said.

"There is a lot of anger around that."