Canterbury transport package welcome

Fri, 27/03/2009 - 3:17pm

Roading New Zealand welcomes today’s announcement of a $244 million transport package from central government to cover the Canterbury region's transport needs over the next ten years.

“Not only will this enable projects to be delivered in the next 10 years rather than the next 20 to 25 years” Roading New Zealand's Chief Executive, Chris Olsen said “it will be a shot in the arm for local contractors who have recently had to lay staff off”.

A number of contractors have had to lay off a significant number of workers over the past year or so because the expected projects arising from the roughly $25M pa collected from Canterbury’s 2004 regional petrol tax boost have failed to appear.

Roading New Zealand’s local member and General Manager of Calcon Ltd, Stewart Callaway, said that he hoped the extra funding would not also be tied up in red tape resulting in huge delays with projects coming on stream.