New Nelson-Richmond road scrapped

As a new road linking Richmond and Nelson is scrapped, stakeholders say councils need to do more planning instead of proposing “piecemeal” solutions to transport issues.

Mayor Nick Smith said the proposed road, linking Suffolk Rd with Hill St North, was a “no-brainer” in Nelson City Council’s last meeting of 2023.

He argued that having a third route linking the two towns would reduce the chance of gridlock when one of the two existing arterial routes – Main Rd Stoke and State Highway 6/Whakatū Drive – was closed.

However, councillors voted down the proposal, citing several concerns about the road, including its estimated $37 million cost as well as the lack of data supporting the project.

Deputy mayor Rohan O’Neill-Stevens described transport networks as “bloody complex”.

“Small changes can have significant unintended consequences, and… a project without any of that thinking having been done… makes my heart race.”

Similar sentiments were echoed by stakeholders of the city’s transport network who said Nelson needed more than a “piecemeal” approach to fixing the city’s transportation issues.

The chair of the Automobile Association’s (AA) Nelson District, Richard Popenhagen, says the project could have improved resilience and he is disappointed to see the project shelved.

He says that the region’s population growth had not been matched by an appropriate investment into the roading network, but new investments should be considered within the context of the whole network.

“We’ve got to look at an overall plan for the region in figuring out how we implement these, rather than just doing one piecemeal bit at a time that just moves the logjam from one place to another.”

Convenor of local sustainable transport group Nelsust, Peter Olorenshaw, also says there might be advantages in having the new road built, but he would like to see data that supported the road before it was committed to.

“I think that [project] needs some traffic engineering modelling, just to see what effect that would actually have,” he says.

“It may have unforeseen traffic implications.”

Peter believes traffic should remain on State Highway 6/Whakatū Dr rather than diverting some of it down backroads.

Julian Raine, from Oaklands Milk, shares his view. The proposed road would run through the Oaklands farm that Julian’s family has farmed 180 years.

“State Highway 6… should flow freely, but it doesn’t. It’s a fundamental problem and it’s not going to be fixed by putting a road from Hill St to Saxton Rd,” he says.

“You’ve got to take a bigger look at how you deal with the macro issues.”

Julian says the Nelson Tasman councils decided not to go ahead with a new link road when presented with the opportunity more than 30 years ago when the Saxton Fields complex was being developed. However, Oaklands is working with the council to try and align both organisations’ current aspirations.

Though it’s “early days yet”, the future could see a housing development of about 50 hectares on part of the farm, but Julian says that any road connecting the development should be “sympathetic” to residential communities.

Developers have shown their interest in developing the Oaklands farm, he adds.