Phil Mauger’s roving footpath crew completes 2000 repairs

Thursday, 4 January 2024

Terry Soppet, left, and Steve Armstrong are members of the Christchurch City Council’s rapid response footpath crews and have helped repair nearly 2000 damaged footpaths. (File photo)

Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger’s famed $2 million footpath crew has repaired almost 2000 damaged footpaths in its first six months.

Some people are so happy to see the crew outside their homes they bring the workers coffee and scones, Mauger says.

However, only time will tell if the scheme makes a difference to the city council’s dismal residents’ satisfaction survey results.

The 1939 repairs done so far are likely to be a small fraction of the 43 kilometres of footpaths known to be in a poor condition.

Residents have complained about the state of the city’s footpaths for a number of years. Bumpy asphalt has regularly featured as one of the most complained about issues in the council’s satisfaction surveys.

Last year, just 31.5% of residents were satisfied with the state of the city’s footpaths. Some 44.3% were dissatisfied.

Half of the $2m cost of the footpath crews is covered by Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency. (File photo)

The footpath crew was one of Mauger’s election promises. As a councillor, he said footpath issues made up 50% to 60% of the complaints he received.

Two crews, each with three workers, had completed 1939 repairs as of late December since starting work on July 3.

There are about 2792 kilometres of footpaths across Christchurch and Banks Peninsula, and the council receives about 1500 requests for repairs from residents every year.

One crew focuses on central and northern Christchurch, while the other is based in the south.

The footpath teams have initially targeted safety issues, at the same time as fixing everything else in the same street that falls within their scope to repair.

That includes repairs of up to 3m², trimming back vegetation and fixing small sections of kerbs - so long as doing so does not require them to step onto the road.

If work does not require more than minor traffic management, equipment and materials, it is in their remit.

Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger says as a councillor, most of the complaints he received from residents were about footpaths. (File photo)

A footpath condition report completed last year by the council on 1093km of footpaths showed 993km were in a very good or good condition (91%), 57km were in a fair condition (5%), and 43km of footpaths were in very poor or poor condition (4%).

A similar report will soon be done on the remaining 1699km.

Mauger said the crews were working “wonderfully”. He had heard reports of them being given coffee and scones from residents happy to see the paths finally fixed.

The scheme, which was 51% funded by New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, was unanimously supported by the council at last year’s annual plan, but it will need continued support to keep going past June 30 this year.

Its future will be decided as part of the council’s 10-year budget, the long term plan.

Mauger said he would like to think the footpath crew would continue forever and was hopeful of continued support from councillors.

“We had a straw poll, everyone (councillors) was generally happy it was going well.”

City streets maintenance manager Steve Guy said the council had received some compliments about the scheme, but people tended to only contact the council with complaints.

He said the council had decided to measure the scheme’s success based on customer feedback via its various residents’ surveys and direct feedback.