Transport Minister Michael Wood has left the door open to delaying the delivery of some of New Zealand’s most high-profile roading projects.

They include widening the southern motorway from Papakura to Drury south of Auckland and the Ōtaki to north of Levin expressway.

The government is “rescoping” projects in the $8.7 billion NZ Upgrade programme, which includes 19 high-profile transport projects. The projects were announced back in 2020 but massive cost blowouts saw several of the most high-profile roads axed in 2021 despite a $1.9b cash injection.

It comes after an appeal to the Ombudsman revealed many of the projects face “red” ratings for their potential to go over budget.

Upgrade roads include Auckland’s Penlink, and Wellington’s Ōtaki to North of Levin (O2NL) and the Melling interchange, and Tauranga’s Takitimu North Link.

Wood was keen to say there would be no cuts to the programme this time, but has not taken back some trimming of the projects and rephasing to deal with cost inflation.

“The Government is committed to delivering the significant transport projects that are funded through NZUP,” Wood said.

“There will be no cuts or significant paring back, but as is always the case there will be work to find efficiencies as projects go through detailed design and implementation.

Waka Kotahi warned projects are likely to go over budget. Photo / Waka Kotahi

An announcement is expected on the future of the programme in the weeks following the Budget. No decisions have been made on whether the projects will need an additional cash injection.

“Many NZUP projects are already in delivery. Confirmed arrangements for the final few large projects will be confirmed in the near future,” Wood said.

National’s transport spokesman Simeon Brown said the Govenment needed to “come clean about the status of the NZ Upgrade programme”

“These are roads they cancelled and then promised and now they look like they may be cancelled again.

“Labour misled New Zealanders when they committed to this programme of works. They already cancelled Mill Road and Whangārei to Port Marsden,” Brown said.

“Labour can’t be trusted with roads,” he said.

In February, Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency chief executive Nicole Rosie confirmed in a select committee some of the projects were being “rescoped”.

When asked by Brown whether more money was needed to deliver the entire NZUP, Rosie said that if Waka Kotahi did not know the “scope” of the projects it was impossible to know if they needed more funding.

“If we don’t know the scope, we can’t tell you the answer to that,” Rosie said.

 “In reality the Government has been very clear that it wants to operate within the envelope that’s available to them, so the rescoping is around looking at how they can continue on those projects within the money that’s available,” she said.

Waka Kotahi provides regular reporting on the health of the projects. Details from these reports were withheld from Official Information Act requests, but a successful appeal to the Ombudsman by Brown and the National Party has seen details released.

The report, already nearly a year old, but released by the Ombudsman this year, gave each of the transport projects a health rating on a traffic light scale for their propensity to go over budget or over time.

Roads like Penlink, were given a “green” rating for all criteria, but roads like Ōtaki to north of Levin or the Melling interchange were given “red” ratings for their likelihood to go over budget.

- Thomas Coughlan, NZ Herald