Ashburton residents say road quality is their biggest gripe

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By local democracy reporter Jonathan Leask:

Ashburton residents say the region's roads are their biggest gripe, but a research expert says people are just choosing it as a “default’’ response.

Two-thirds (66%) of respondents, of the 873 residents surveyed, listed roading as the primary reason for dissatisfaction.

Key Research managing director Mike Hooker, who presented the results of the annual residents' survey, questioned the response.

“It’s a perennial issue for the council and it’s also what we refer to as a default attribute,” Hooker said.

“When residents are struggling to give a reason for dissatisfaction, they are defaulting to the roading network.”

The residents’ road satisfaction levels were the opposite of the council’s end-of-year performance report, which recorded the district's sealed local road network as being 98% smooth.

Councillor Carolyn Cameron said she was “fascinated” by that figure, and asked for an explanation.

Roading manager Mark Chamberlain said the smoothness figure was produced “by a machine that goes round and measures roughness”.

“While there are faults on it, the overall network is very good,” he said.

Chief executive Hamish Riach said the council knew the community was dissatisfied with the state of the roads, especially the number of potholes.

The roading network suffered from back-to-back wet winters and now, coming off a drier winter, the contractors hope to get ahead of the problems, Riach said.

“With additional resources, additional attention, and a little bit of luck from the weather, we are optimistic we can improve perceptions of the network.”

The satisfaction with the sealed roads increased up 2% to 26%. Last year's result was the lowest it had, with pothole issues.

The residents’ survey asked what the council should spend more on.

Hooker said this resulted in the “default attribute”, with 61% pointing to roading.

The council resealed 4.9% (75km) of the network in 2022/23, which came down to funding, Chamberlain said.

The survey also highlighted that Ashburton residents were more satisfied than those outside the town boundary, Hooker said.

“If you live in the Ashburton township, you are much more likely to be satisfied with every attribute that we measure than those that live in the rest of the district.”

Again, roading was the example, with Ashburton having a 33% satisfaction level with the state of the roads, while the rest of the district was at 15%.