Transmission Gully Build Brought Forward

The Regional Transport Committee (RTC) agreed today to push forward the Transmission Gully Highway and Porirua Link Roads projects in a variation to the Wellington Regional Land Transport Programme.

“This is another brick in the Transmission Gully Motorway project that indicates construction is imminent," says Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett.

Porirua City Council and the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) requested the change following a decision by the Government last year to build Transmission Gully as a Public Private Partnership (PPP).

“That decision enabled the construction start date of the project to be brought forward a year and the committee’s support today means we could see work on this long awaited road begin next year.”

The Porirua City Link Roads to Transmission Gully will be constructed at the same time as the Transmission Gully Motorway.

“Porirua City Council has successfully argued to bring funding for this project forward. Now we just await approval by Greater Wellington Regional Council when they meet to discuss the proposal next week (25 September).”

Once the variation has been approved by Greater Wellington, it will be forwarded to the NZTA for inclusion in the National Land Transport Programme (NLTP).

Background:

Transmission Gully

Under a PPP, a private sector consortium will finance the design, construction, maintenance and operation of the Transmission Gully highway. In return, the NZTA will commit to making debt payments for up to 25 years once the highway is available to traffic and has met all specified standards. These payments will be made through the National Land Transport Fund, but will have no impact on the RLTP or NLTP until 2020 when the highway is open. Consequently, there is no impact on the current 2012-15 programme in terms of cash-flow from bringing this project forward one year.

Porirua Link Roads

Porirua City Council has made a request to vary the RLTP 2012-15 by bringing forward a small proportion of the cost for the Porirua link roads project, currently timed outside the three year programme, into the 2012-15 period. This project is currently identified in the RLTP table of ‘Other significant activities expected to commence within the next 10 years’ (previously called Transmission Gully link roads).

The total cost of this project identified in the Porirua City Council Annual Plan is $35 million. The project would be jointly funded by Porirua City Council and the NZ Transport Agency. For the purposes of the requested variation to the RLTP the cashflow will be:

2013/14 - $2,266,000

2014/15 - $2,337,000

The remainder will fall within the 2015-18 land transport programme.

This total variation cost of $4.6 million relates to an increase of around 10% in the relevant activity class (New and improved infrastructure for local roads) and less than 0.5% of the total programme cost.

ENDS

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