Figures reveal South Island funding shortfall

Thursday, 1 February 2024

The South Island has 25% of the population but only gets 9% of the national transport funding, a new document reveals.

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency’s briefing to the incoming Transport Minister shows a discrepancy between active capital projects that are underway in the North and South Islands, on a per capita basis.

It says Waka Kotahi has more than $20b worth of these projects, 91% of which are in the North Island.

The South Island’s projects amount to $1.8bn or about 9% of the total funding. While Canterbury which has 12.5% of the population is getting 7% of the funding, compared to Wellington which has 11% of the population but 17% of the funding.

The South Island projects include SH6 Blenheim to Woodburn, SH1 Selwyn River to Ashburton and S1 Elles Rd safety improvements.

Other roads undergoing work were SH94 Homer Tunnel and SH1 Picton port access. Business cases were underway for SH6 Haast to Hawea and Dunedin City and Hospital.

Canterbury had 23 projects worth a total of $1.4bn, compared to Wellington’s 44 projects worth $3.5bn.

Transport planner Axel Downard-Wilke said the South Island had always been under-funded by successive Wellington-focused Governments.

“South Island MPs have never really effectively campaigned for the South Island getting its fair share and neither is that something that the local councillors in Christchurch have ever been doing in any effective form or shape,” he said.

“It’s just unsatisfactory and when you look at public transport funding for Wellington and Christchurch it’s even more stark,” he said.

The briefing says Waka Kotahi spent $24.3 billion between 2021 and 2024 and is responsible for 11,000km of the state highway network over which 72% of freight and 50% of personal travel occurs.

It says the total forecast revenue was about $5bn in 2023/24 compared to a forecast spend of almost $8bn. Spend was set to increase to almost $10bn, while revenue was expected to remain the same by 2033/34.

It says a sustainable funding solution was needed and the funding system was strained due to the age of the network, increasing frequency and severity of weather events and congestion.

“In recognition that new and different funding sources are needed to support the level of change underway, the Agency is working with the Ministry and the Treasury to consider alternative ways to price the transport system,” it says.

“The current funding situation sees much of the planned future investment currently under or unfunded.”

It says many of the highways are reaching replacement age and an increasing demand on the network due to growth in population and volume of freight on the network means that investment in a sustainable transport network is increasingly important.

Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand Policy and Projects Advisor Billy Clemens said projects in the National Party’s promised Transport for the Future package were skewed in favour of the North Island.

He said it was necessary to invest in areas of future growth like Northland, Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty which were predicted to account for two thirds of New Zealand’s population growth in the next two decades.

“We have sympathy for those in the South Island feeling frustrated with the lack of progress. Our members have been saying for years that a second Ashburton bridge is a real risk for resiliency,” he said.

Flooding in 2021 saw the South Island essentially cut in half after significant damage caused the closure of the Ashburton River Hakatere Bridge on State Highway 1. The lack of alternatives saw some faced with a 13-hour diversion.

Roads on the West Coast and Nelson were “really vulnerable” to severe weather events due to having single lane sections and no alternative routes.

“There’s a case for investment in maintenance and general improvement throughout the entire country,” he said.

There needed to be an increase of $1.2bn over three years in maintenance budgets and the Government needed to look at alternative funding options including the use of tolls and public private partnerships, he said.

Waka Kotahi and Minister for Transport Simeon Brown have been approached for comment.