Waka Kotahi's plans for State Highway 1 going over old ground

Waka Kotahi is working off plans that are several years old on how to improve State Highway 1 between Taupō and the Desert Road.

Its business cases for the project date from 2017 and 2020.

They talk about how the road is unsafe, with a lot of crashes, unreliable and inefficient.

The agency's new state highway investment proposal for 2024-2034 said: "We'll also continue developing the long-term plan for SH1 between Taupō and the Desert Road, progressing to an indicative business case for this crucial corridor."

That new indicative business case would be on top of the indicative business case done in 2020, which itself followed a 2017 programme business case.

The agency said the "long-term plan" referred to those old business cases.

"Some of the improvements identified have been implemented, delivered through our safety improvement programme.

"Our current priority is to progress planning work and develop the next phase of business case work."