Severe winter weather is wreaking havoc on the state of Aotearoa's roads.
A slip covers the road along State Highway 35. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Waka Kotahi says it has recorded seven events between 2018 and 2021 classed as 'significant' - meaning they cost between $15 and $50 million in repairs - compared with just two significant events in the four years prior.
Councils picking up the tab for road repairs are feeling the pinch - especially those in small communities.
With fewer ratepayers, they simply can't afford to keep up with the damage.
West Coast Civil Defence Group Controller Te Aroha Cook told RNZ events like this weren't budgeted for, as yet another deluge approached the region.
"Basically it will try and be recuperated in future years from rates, or trying to get subsidies or grants from government to offset those costs.
"It's not a great bank account sitting there to respond to these events for any council in New Zealand."
Clean-up costs and timeframes were also blown out by the financial and health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, Cook said.
South Wairarapa District Council's partnerships and operations manager Stefan Corbett said with that thrown into the mix, it felt like a perfect storm.
"We've had global supply chains disrupted, which has increased costs for us.
"We've had labour shortages, at times over half of the teams, both our teams and the contractors' teams, off work."
Fewer staff and more emergency works meant routine maintenance fell by the wayside, too - leaving the state of the country's roads in a constant downward spiral, Corbett said.
"Any further rain just immediately floods, and is very destructive.
"That's caused slips, fallen trees, the complete destruction of several sections rural roads on our network."
It had also caused some communities to be isolated for days, he said.
Waka Kotahi has an emergency works fund to help councils pay to fix roads after heavy weather events.
Gisborne District Council currently has an application in for $26 million.
Most of that was for damage caused by heavy rain in March which caused a state of emergency to be declared in Tairāwhiti, said Community Lifelines director David Wilson.
But they were also still fixing things up from storms as far back as 2018.
"There's some big damage that keeps happening to our network," Wilson said.
"Given the size of our network, and the size of the weather events that are happening, we're still getting hammered.
"For us as a community [with a] low ratepayer base, and low affordability for our ratepayer base as well, compounds in some really hard decisions to be made about how we prioritise the funding that we get."
Gisborne District Council was talking with Waka Kotahi about building more resilient networks, which could mean ditching endless patch ups in favour of more drastic changes, Wilson said.
Waka Kotahi said it was developing a Climate Change Adaptation Plan - Tiro Rangi - outlining what the agency would do to prepare for, and respond to, the effects of climate change on New Zealand's land transport system.
The plan is due to be released by the end of this year.
