12. DAVID BENNETT (National—Hamilton East) Link to this
to the Minister of Transport
What progress has been made on advancing the Victoria Park road of national significance?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) Link to this
Last Monday I was pleased to attend with the Prime Minister the New Zealand Transport Agency’s announcement of its preferred tenderer for the Victoria Park project. I congratulate the winning V-Formation consortium, which includes some of our leading infrastructure firms. This is an important milestone for the project and I look forward to construction beginning in November, 1 year earlier than originally planned.
This project, when completed, will eliminate a major choke point on one of the busiest stretches of the Auckland motorway network and will greatly ease congestion for the 160,000-plus vehicles that use that route each day, including people who travel to and from the North Shore and Auckland’s port. It is estimated that 120 people will be working on the project within 6 months, rising to about 300 by the middle of next year, and that will be maintained until the project is finished. Of course, that does not include the downstream impact for businesses and workers involved in related work.
Victoria Park is one of the first big projects to benefit from the Government’s decision to increase funding for State highway construction by $1 billion over the next 3 years through the National Land Transport Fund. Victoria Park was scheduled to commence construction in November 2010, but under the previous Government’s policy statement there was doubt that even that date would have been met. Without the additional funding, this project might never have got off the ground; neither would the jobs and economic benefits it will now bring.