Council fears for small contractors

A council is concerned small contractors will lose out on jobs if proposed traffic management rules go ahead.

Waka Kotahi’s goal of zero deaths on New Zealand roads by 2050 has seen it propose changes to the country’s temporary traffic management rules.

The Southland District Council is concerned the proposed rules, if rubber-stamped, will become too burdensome for small contractors to carry out work in road reserves, the area from a private property’s boundary and across the road to the opposite private property boundary.

Deputy mayor Ebel Kremer said it would be extremely difficult for smaller contractors to put in contracts because of the constraints put in place under the new proposal. And this would impact on their ability to survive and provide the service they had been providing.

‘‘It has to be a major concern for this council ... we have got a large network, a lot of contractors, a big area to look after.’’

If local contractors lost the work they might be lost to their communities which would be detrimental for the areas they lived in, he said.

Council transport strategic manager Hartley Hare said there were currently templates for how contractors should organise traffic management on jobs they did in road reserves.

But he said Waka Kotahi was proposing to do away with those templates, meaning contractors might have to employ traffic design engineers to draw up traffic management plans for even gardening jobs on roadside berms.

The extra paperwork and costs to small contractors could result in them instead focusing on doing work on private properties, which could leave the council short of contractors, he said.

He supported Waka Kotahi’s bid to make the roads safer, saying there were good aspects around its risk management approach, but he believed some parts of the current model were working and should be kept.

Waka Kotahi road worker safety programme director Ryan Cooney said the proposed new rules had a stronger safety goal for workers in

the road corridor and for the public using the roads.

The new approach put the onus on the people doing the work to thoroughly look at the risks and how they could protect themselves and everyone else, he said.

Waka Kotahi senior staffer Vanessa Browne said the changes were being made because Waka Kotahi was committed to New Zealand’s Road to Zero deaths on the roads.

‘‘Waka Kotahi is concerned that people are dying and getting seriously injured at work sites in New Zealand. This is not acceptable and we need industry practices to change to protect people, so everyone goes home safely each day.’’

The proposed new guide was a move away from a prescriptive set of rules to a more flexible set of guidelines that emphasised managing risks to keep people safe.

‘‘To improve safety for road workers and road users we need to change the approach and culture around how we manage people’s safety at temporary traffic sites.’’

The process was still subject to changes and Waka Kotahi had decided to continue engaging with stakeholders, including local contractors and road controlling authorities, in coming months, she said.

‘‘. . . we need industry practices to change to protect people . . .’’ Vanessa Browne Waka Kotahi senior staffer