A hole lot better

The number of potholes needing fixed in Mid Canterbury is going down according to the region's road contractor.

In a presentation to Ashburton District Council, HEB’s South Island regional manager Lee Hautler said a drier year and additional funding was behind the improved situation.

HEB, which holds the maintenance contract for the Ashburton council’s road network, said they have so far patched 3292 potholes in 2024.

That compares to  8406 in 2023, and a whopping 12,607 in 2022 on the back of the Canterbury floods.

HEB's Ashburton maintenance contract manager James Faber said a change in methodology around patching potholes was also reaping rewards.

But even with increases in funding towards road rehabilitation and reseals, there remained a lot of cracks and sections needing new pavement across the ageing network Faber said.

"It doesn’t take much moisture to get into those cracks and open them up,’’ he said.

"It will still be a lot of years and a lot of investment before we get the Ashburton network up to standard, and even then there will still be potholes.”

Hautler said that pothole patches were just temporary measures until the section of road was fully repaired.

A lot of the patches are made during winter, but HEB identifies the pothole “hot spots” to be programmed for permanent repairs to be done over summer, he said.

Work was underway on the first of five road rehabilitation projects in the district, with Fulton Hogan awarded the tender for 4115m of new road for $1.05 million.

A section of Ashburton Staveley Road, 520m near Walkhams Road, is being worked on already, with two other sections to follow along with sites on Forks Road and Pudding Hill Road.

Other work to be tendered later in the year is for the rehabilitation on Seafield Road, two sections on Beach Road East and Maronan Road.

In the long-term plan, the council is also increasing road funding annually by $5.2 million per year for 2024-27 and an extra $500,000 annually specifically for unsealed roads.

Meanwhile, HEB said it was adopting a "change in strategy’’ in line with new traffic management requirements and that would mean less road cones being used while doing their work.

"We will be doing more road closures, which will allow us to be more productive and reduce the time,” Faber said.

Councillor Carolyn Cameron said traffic management "has been a source of frustration” and questioned the level of disruption the change in approach would have.

HEB roading general manager Harry Alderson said the trade-off was more disruption but for less time.

He estimated traffic management averaged between 10-15% of project costs.

"If we can do twice as much work in the same day with the same resource, we will halve the cost of traffic management”.

SURVEY SAYS…

HEB say the roading network has improved and the community appears to agree.

The council’s 2023/24 annual residents’ survey had the satisfaction with sealed roads increase by 6% to 32% and unsealed roads 9% to 55%.

Sealed roads satisfaction had been rated at 76% in 2010 and steadily dropped to a low of 24% in 2021/22.

Mayor Neil Brown said that satisfaction trends line up with when the "underfunding of roading” started around 15 years ago.

The rise in this year’s survey was a good achievement.

"We still have more to go but at least it’s pointing in the right direction.”

By Jonathan Leask

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