Chamber welcomes Basin Reserve Appeal

Wellington Employers’ Chamber of Commerce welcomes the New Zealand Transport Agency’s decisions to lodge an appeal against the declined resource consent for the Basin Reserve flyover.

Chamber President John Milford said the Basin remains a bottleneck in transport infrastructure that is vital to driving Wellington’s economy forward.

“We need a solution there, there’s no doubt about that.

“This appeal is more than just about the flyover solution itself – it’s about providing greater certainty for future transport infrastructure development at the Basin as well as elsewhere, and no one can argue with that. We need that to ensure progress.

“From what NZTA is saying, the board of inquiry’s decision erred on points of law that could have greater ramifications further down the road, so that does need to be tested in court.

“Whatever solution is eventually reached for the Basin it needs to factor in the connected projects, such as the second Mt Victoria tunnel and the Bus Rapid Transit system, all of which the decision of the board did not recognise.

“These projects are all vital parts of Wellington’s transport infrastructure jigsaw that everyone agrees we need.

“The unfortunate thing about all this is that we still have a developing problem at the Basin which must be fixed in some way sooner rather than later, and I urge that in the meantime the region presses on with developing a Plan B.”

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