Shingle road ‘shambles’ in rural Canterbury

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

By local democracy reporter Jonathan Leask:

Canterbury resident Ian Hodge says his shingle road was left in a "shambles" after maintenance work.

Hodge has lived on Rawles Crossing Rd in the Greenstreet area, just out of Ashburton, for over 20 years.

It’s rural living on a shingle road and his family loves the lifestyle.
"We can put up with a bit of dust from a shingle road, it’s just part of living out here.”

The problem is there hasn’t been any shingle put on the road since he moved in and there's nothing left to grade on some patches of the road, he said.

He said his frustration rose when the Ashburton District Council’s roading contractor completed maintenance on a section of pot-holed road that "left it in a dangerous state”.

"What it ended up being was a shambles,” Hodge said.

"They dropped truckloads of a mud-like substance on the road and then a truckload of water. Then a heavy roller tried to roll it flat but couldn't. The grader couldn't grade it.’’

It was a mess and the surface was almost impassable, he said.

"It was slippery and dangerous and formed tramlines which steered cars on its track.”

The contractors eventually returned to "remove the sludge” and a grader attempted to redistribute the gravel, which he said hadn’t been replenished in the 20-odd years they had lived there.

"Now some of the potholes are back and the speed limit is still 100kph.”
Hodge said he was baffled at the "prolonged, expensive and ineffective process" and, as a ratepayer, believed the road should be fixed once and fixed right.

"We pay our rates and can expect a certain level of service.

"We aren’t expecting the road to be sealed or anything, just maintained to an acceptable and safe standard.”

Ashburton council’s infrastructure and open spaces manager Neil McCann said the gravel the contractors used on Rawles Crossing Rd was basalt, which is a softer material used on some sites to provide a longer-term repair.

"When placed it is soft but when it dries out, [it] provides a good stable surface that requires less maintenance.”

But in some good news for Hodge, McCann confirmed that maintenance metalling for the majority of Rawles Crossing Rd was scheduled for the next financial year in 2025/26.

"This short section was done because it was causing issues.”

A $500,000 annual spending boost for the next three years aims to improve the state of many of the Ashburton District’s unsealed roads.

McCann said the additional funding meant their road metal targeting work should be met this financial year.

Ashburton District's roading network has 1515km of sealed roads and 1102km of unsealed roads.

In 2023-24, the council failed to reach its target of applying 48,000 cubic metres of metal to the unsealed network, only reaching 35,684m³.

Seeing a decline in the state of unsealed roading, councillor Richard Wilson pushed for an additional $500,000 annually for the next three years to help improve the situation.

"You can grade all you like, but without the shingle there the road won’t get any better," Wilson said.