The Chair of the Finance and Performance Committee is calling on mayoral candidate Sara Templeton to “correct comments” she made about Christchurch’s road resurfacing programme.
This story has been updated with full comments from Sara Templeton here
In an interview with a student magazine, Templeton said: “As a city, you’re supposed to do six to 7% of your roading network a year, and by the end of the last term, under Lianne, we were up to 5% post quake. That’s dropped down to sit at 1% so it would take us 100 years to renew all the roads in the city, if we keep it at that rate.”
Committee Chair Sam MacDonald described the comment as “factually incorrect, careless, and misleading for someone on our Council, let alone wanting to be the Mayor of Christchurch.”
Sam MacDonald has firmly aligned himself with Phil Mauger’s campaign to retain the Christchurch mayoralty.
A Christchurch City Council spokeswoman confirmed to chrislynchmedia.com “we have a Level of Service to resurface >= 4% of the sealed road network each year.
Last financial year we resurfaced 6.5% (138.6km)” The council spokeswoman said.
“Councillor Templeton needs to correct her comments around the road resurfacing work we do within Christchurch. The misinformation is not helping the city rebuild trust and confidence in its council” MacDonald said.
MacDonald said the council receives regular updates on its financial position and performance targets.
“While Templeton referred to it being ‘great under Lianne at 5%,’ this council has increased that number to 6.5% (138.6km of the sealed local road network) being resurfaced in the last financial year alone.
“That is well above the 4% target set within our long term plan. Ironically, by her own admission, we are exactly where we should be as a city in terms of renewals,” he said.
“We work hard to rebuild trust and confidence in council and to focus the organisation on delivering results, and to share something so blatantly incorrect is not helpful. As Clr Templeton has said constantly, she wants to run a campaign based on facts and evidence. This is not helpful. Clr Templeton needs to publicly correct her statements.”
Sara Templeton said it was “misinformation from Sam, as it has already been corrected with Canta.”
Transcript excerpt of Templeton’s comments:
“…and the other one is roading. So everyone complains about our roads and the number of potholes, so we’re spending a lot more money fixing potholes, but one of the reasons we’re spending so much more money fixing potholes is because we’re not actually properly renewing the road surface.
So as a city, you’re supposed to do six to 7% of your roading network a year, and by the end of the last term, under Lianne, we were up to 5% post quake. That’s dropped down to sit at 1% so it would take us 100 years to renew all the roads in the city, if we keep it at that rate.
So we’re not doing very well in our infrastructure space, and we need to be doing better.”
