• The Government’s three-year budget for transport in Auckland is $564 million less than hoped for by Auckland Council. 
• The council has rejected the Government’s plans for those cuts in favour of making its own funding decisions. 
• Major projects like the Hill St intersection upgrade in Warkworth and a range of community spending have been deferred. 

Auckland Council has thumbed its nose at Transport Minister Simeon Brown’s proposals for spending cuts in Auckland. Instead, the council has incorporated his cuts into a new transport budget that reflects its own priorities. 

The move comes the same week Brown, who is also the Minister of Local Government, announced he will appoint an observer to Wellington City Council, because he was not confident the council is managing its affairs well enough. 

Auckland Council did not want to cut the budget at all. But last month Brown announced the Government’s new National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) which reduced planned spending in the city by $564 million over three years, from a total budget for that period of $4.5 billion. 

The NLTP focuses on Roads of National Significance, the City Rail Link and Eastern Busway, with some big cuts in other public transport, road safety, cycleways and other programmes. 

Funding for local transport in Auckland comes roughly 50:50 from the Government and the council. Because NLTP funding is less than was hoped for by the council and Auckland Transport (AT), those two entities have had to decide how to spend the remaining money. 

Following a workshop earlier this month, the governing body of the council met yesterday to make a decision on several options put forward by officials. 

Should the council simply adopt the cuts as specified in the NLTP? Should it go further and match the NLTP cuts with more of its own? Or should it maintain its own spending and reallocate the new budget as it saw fit? 

Officials recommended the latter option and presented a plan for how to do that. This plan already had the support of the AT board. 

The meeting was chaired by Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson, as Mayor Wayne Brown is overseas. She supported the recommendation. 

“We still have $3.9 billion to be spent over next three years,” Simpson said. “That’s more money than ever before. The proposal before us allocates the existing funds to our highest-priority projects.” 

She added: “No one is in the mood for more rates increases.” 

Big projects like motorways and the City Rail Link (CRL) are not affected by these cuts. But under the new budget, some major local projects will be deferred, including the Hill St intersection in Warkworth, the Rosedale station on the Northern Busway, a new Botany interchange, a cycleway connection between Meadowbank and Kohimarama and construction of new electric ferries. 

Much of the spending rejected by the Government will still be reduced in the new plan. Road safety, street maintenance, preparation for time-of-use (congestion) charging and spending on cycleways and bus services will all receive significantly less than the council originally hoped. 

In all those areas, though, the cuts are less severe than proposed by the Government, because the council has tried to spread the impact much more widely. 

Road safety programmes, including cycling in schools and walking school buses, are one example of this. They will lose 40% of their funding, but as councillor Richard Hills noted: “The Government cut the road safety budget from $70 million down to $6 million. We’re restoring much of that.” 

Councillor Richard Hills says the cuts are bad but they could be worse. 

Councillor Julie Fairey pointed out that the new road safety budget did not allow for the Government’s decision to reverse lower speed limits, “even though AT has calculated the cost of changing road signs and all the related work will be about $12 million”. 

She asked who would pay for that. Officials responded that this had not yet been announced, but NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) had indicated that “some funding might be available”. 

Hills said: “So the Government is giving us only $6 million for road safety but we might have to spend $12 million to make our roads more dangerous?” 

The Government also cut completely the funding for sealing gravel roads, a particular issue in the Rodney ward, to the far north of the city. But the council has restored this budget item in full. 

The motion to adopt the new budget, rather than follow the Government’s lead on what to cut, was proposed by councillor Andy Dalton and seconded by councillor Maurice Williamson. It passed unanimously. 

Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018.