Council launches West Coast transport survey

Westland, Grey and Buller District Councils have jointly launched a West Coast transport survey. This aims to get a more detailed understanding of how West Coasters experience their Council-owned roads, bridges and footpaths, and their preferences for future transport improvements.

The survey builds on results from a previous survey in 2019 and seeks to understand three key things about how residents, ratepayers, and visitors view the roading network – what works well, what doesn’t work well, and what could be improved.

The survey focuses on Council-owned transport networks (roads, bridges, footpaths, cycle trails), not the State Highway network, which is managed by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency.

To support future planning, the councils are also looking for community feedback and direction on five strategic drivers that they are looking to build into their work programme. These are broader regional and national government strategies that will shape how each council plans and invests in their local transport networks and include:

• Road safety
• Climate change mitigation and adaptation
• Resilience to natural hazards
• Zero carbon and emissions reduction
• Economic development

Understanding what the community thinks about their roads is a critical piece of this process. The feedback received will be a key piece of evidence as the councils look to develop a business case to support investment in the West Coast transport network.

Programme spokesman, Westland Transportation Manager Karl Jackson sees this as a great opportunity for West Coast road users to let the councils know how they are experiencing their roads on a day-to-day basis.

“When we last carried out this survey, we had a fantastic response from people up and down the Coast, and this feedback was directly used to make the case for increased investment from Waka Kotahi.”

“This time we’re asking the same questions, but we also want community feedback on a range of strategic drivers that we need to address. We’ve got a large roading network, a small ratepayer base, and some of the most challenging landscapes in the country, so it’s important to know what Coasters think, so we can prioritise where we invest to ensure we’re delivering for our communities.”

“The more we can understand about the roading network, the better the case for investment to improve our roading network. The best source of that information is the people who use our roads every day.”

The survey will begin 21 November and run for one month, closing on 19 December. Everyone is encouraged to let Council know their views by using our online survey. Once the information has been collected and analysed, the results will be shared with the community.

-ENDS-

Media contact
Chris Bowie
022 185 3296