Government agrees to co-fund ‘lifeline’ Pages Rd bridge project

Monday, 2 September 2024

Securing funding for the bridge is a win for Christchurch, as the city council had already agreed to pick up the whole tab if need be.

Christchurch ratepayers will no longer have to cover the entire cost of replacing Pages Rd bridge now central government has come to the table.

The $65 million project will be partially funded by Waka Kotahi - NZ Transport agency (NZTA), as announced by Transport Minister Simeon Brown on Monday.

It was part of a wider announcement about the Government’s $32.9 billion investment into transport and roading across Aotearoa over the next three years, $23.7b of which was broken down by region.

Of the regional figure, Canterbury is expected to receive about $1.8b, or 7.6% of the funding share. It is an increase on the 6.2% it received under the previous Government’s national land transport programme, though Canterbury is home to about 13% of the country’s population.

Transport Minister Simeon Brown announces the $32 billion investment in transport and roading.

Across the region, $538m is forecast to be spent on improvements (like building a second Ashburton Bridge and creating the Woodend Bypass), $541m will be spent on pothole prevention, $364m on maintenance operations and $358m on public transport (up from $246m in the 2021-24 programme).

Some $13.4m will be spent on walking and cycling investment (down from $14m in 2021-24) and $4m will be spent on safety (a major cut from the $146m in 2021-24).

The full funding table (including exactly how much of the Pages Rd bridge project will be co-funded) will be released Tuesday afternoon.

Securing funding for the bridge is a win for Christchurch, as the city council already agreed to pick up the whole tab if need be and wanted to begin construction in 2026.

It is considered critical to getting thousands of New Brighton residents to safety in the case of a natural disaster, but was significantly damaged in the Canterbury earthquakes and given only a temporary repair.

It is unclear what will happen to projects like Christchurch’s Wheels to Wings cycleway (as illustrated above) without Government co-funding.

The project has had passionate support from across the political spectrum on the council.

When the regional transport committee - a group mostly consisting of Canterbury’s mayors - initially lowered the project on its list of priorities (from which NZTA decides what gets co-funded), councillors Celeste Donovan and Aaron Keown lobbied on behalf of the Christchurch council to boost its ranking.

Mayor Phil Mauger said he’d asked Brown about funding the project “at every opportunity” he had and was thrilled the minister had listened.

Christchurch East MP Reuben Davidson, of Labour - who has been campaigning for the Government to help fund the Pages Rd project - said the announcement was “a good start” but he was concerned the Government would not pay 51%, as NZTA typically did for co-funded projects.

A Christchurch City Council spokesperson said on Monday they did not know yet exactly transport projects would or would not be co-funded.

Council staff previously warned councillors that some projects in its $1.6b capital works budget (spread across 10 years) may not go ahead without NZTA co-funding.

That includes the unfinished parts of Christchurch’s major cycleway network programme (such as Wheels to Wings, which will connect Papanui, Bishopdale and Harewood), and the plan to widen footpaths around Te Kaha (to be named One New Zealand Stadium) to improve safety ahead of its 2026 opening.

Footpaths and cycleways across the region have been allocated $13.4m over the next three years, down from $14m allocated in the previous programme.