Keeping rates increases down may save households money now, but Waikato District Council roading sub-committee chair Mike Keir warns that underinvesting in road renewals will eventually affect the condition of the network.
Mike, one of two councillors for Tamahere, says the council is rehabilitating too little of its sealed road network to maintain it sustainably.
Waikato District has about 1800 kilometres of sealed roads. Mike says roads are generally designed for a 25-year life, although many last considerably longer with regular resealing and maintenance.
If every road lasted only 25 years, the council would need to rehabilitate around 70 kilometres annually. However, Mike says 20 to 25 kilometres a year would probably be enough to maintain or improve the network.
The council rehabilitated 13 kilometres last year and eight kilometres the year before, averaging just over 10 kilometres annually.
“You cannot do 10 kilometres of rehab on an 1800-kilometre network and expect to not consume your asset,” he says.
Rehabilitation is the deeper renewal work required when the underlying pavement has deteriorated. It is different from repairing potholes or resealing the surface.
Mike says resealing extends the life of the pavement and restores surface texture, helping vehicles grip the road. He describes it as one of the council’s most effective road-safety investments because many crashes involve vehicles leaving the road on corners.
When roads are not renewed adequately, residents can expect more potholes, patches and deteriorating surfaces.
The council uses data on roughness, rutting, skid resistance and pavement movement to identify which sections need attention first. Mike says this allows work to be prioritised but does not remove the need to invest in the network.
He says there is scope to get better value from the existing budget. The council replaced its previous maintenance alliance with separate contracts for the northern and southern parts of the district, held by Higgins and Fulton Hogan respectively.
Mike says the contractors are beginning to understand the network and more work is being carried out on unsealed roads. He hopes the new arrangements will eventually deliver better service and savings.
Rising material costs are also adding pressure. Mike says bitumen prices have increased by around 70 percent – due to the war in Iran – and estimates this will add about five percent to the council’s roading costs.
“We’re trying to keep our rates at two percent, but we’ve got a five percent cost across our roading network because of the bitumen prices,” he says.
Roads holding up for now, but future costs loom
Mike says detailed data and targeted maintenance allow the council to manage the effects of lower renewal spending for now, but they cannot indefinitely replace the need for investment in road renewals.
Drawing on his experience in the industry, Mike believes New Zealand’s roading network has gradually deteriorated over the past two decades because investment has not kept pace with maintenance needs.
He says the same principle applies locally: while roads can continue performing beyond their design life, eventually underinvestment catches up with the network.
He also believes an increasing share of roading expenditure is being absorbed by health and safety, environmental and compliance requirements rather than physical pavement work.
Mike says his own contracting business lost around half its productivity over 15 years as those requirements increased.
Footpath project lands Mike in trouble
Mike’s frustration with the cost and pace of council infrastructure delivery recently became personal after he upgraded a dangerous section of footpath on Matangi Road before receiving the required approval from the Auditor-General.
The approximately 300-metre footpath ran beside an open roadside drain and had been a priority for Mike since he was elected in 2022. Safety concerns intensified in March when a young boy fell from his bicycle into the half-metre-deep drain and broke his wrist.
Mike says the council had previously been unable to widen the footpath because it did not receive the usual 50 percent subsidy from NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.
However, the closure of Matangi Road during construction of the new State Highway 26 roundabout created an opportunity to complete the work without traffic-management costs.
The council had estimated that widening the footpath from 1.2 metres to 1.8 metres could cost up to $150,000, while the roundabout contractor quoted $115,000. Mike offered to complete most of the work through his engineering business for $50,000 and says the final cost was $47,000.
Because he was both a sitting councillor and the proposed contractor, approval from the Auditor-General was required before the contract proceeded.
Mike says more than four weeks passed without a response and the road was about to reopen, so he decided to carry out the work.
“I built it without the approval coming through, but if I’d waited, I wouldn’t have built it,” he told Raglan Community Radio.
Waikato District Council has since commissioned an investigation under its Code of Conduct process. Mike is appealing the decision and seeking retrospective approval from the Auditor-General.
He says he has not been paid for the work and believes the council should stop spending money on legal proceedings.
“It’s just wrong that our council system would spend money on lawyers and not on infrastructure that keeps kids safe,” he told the Waikato Times.
Mike backs region-wide council
The Government’s local government reform programme could lead to major changes in how councils are structured across Waikato, including the possible replacement of existing district and regional councils with new unitary authorities.
Mike supports a single unitary authority covering the wider Waikato region, rather than a smaller catchment-based model centred on Hamilton, Waikato and Waipā.
He says a region-wide body would allow catchment management and public transport to be coordinated across council boundaries, help balance Hamilton’s interests with those of rural communities and give Waikato a stronger voice when dealing with central government.
However, he says the internal governance structure would need to protect local representation.
“The governance structure has to be set up right to maintain local voice, which I believe is doable,” he says.