NICOLA GRIGG - OPINION PIECE

I think it’s fair to say that over the past six years, we’ve all become increasingly irritated – if not, outright concerned –at the state of the roads around Canterbury and, indeed, the rest of the country.

Under Chris Luxon’s leadership, National has a vision for New Zealand to become one of the world’s leading small, advanced economies and our policies focussed on education, the economy, and lifting productivity are just the start of our plan to fulfil that vision. So too is our Transport for the Future plan, which will help drive prosperity and lift the standard of living for all New Zealanders. Across the country, we’re focussed on building roads and networks that will unlock land for housing growth, better Public Transport and rebuilding regions and resilience.

Our package of 13 Roads of National Significance will cost $24 billion over ten years and all our projects are properly costed and funded. The Government will fund about $14 billion, and we’ll use private capital to get some of the work done, as happens overseas, so taxpayers do not have to pick up the full tab.

Here in Selwyn we’ve committed to begin work investigating the RollestonAshburton four-lane corridor in our first term in government. At the same time, we will get on with building a second Ashburton River bridge. Depending on what is decided by the investigations, we will make decisions around investment in the corridor, and the sequencing of it. While we have previously committed to the immediate build of this road in both the 2017 and 2020 election campaigns, unfortunately, in 2023, we find ourselves in a very, very different economic environment than we were just three years ago. Since 2020, a combination of out-of-control government spending, the global pandemic and severe weather events in the upper North Island have had a gravely detrimental impact on government finances and, indeed, the New Zealand economy. National is acutely aware of the importance of this project to the South Island economy but, with a price tag of about $2 billion – and, with huge and urgent storm-related works required in other parts of the country – we have had to prioritise other

Keep Lambs Safe

SPCA New Zealand are asking dog owners to take care during lambing season. Unfortunately, every year lambs and sheep are stressed, injured, or killed by dogs. This is traumatic for both the animals and people involved and is usually completely avoidable.

A plea from a local Facebook user, after losing five pet lambs to dog attacks, asks that dog owners, whose properties border farmland, make sure their dogs cannot