Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Darryn Fisher: Northland Chamber of Commerce chief executive says they're working to accelerate work on prioritised regional expressway

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Darryn Fisher: Northland Chamber of Commerce chief executive says they're working to accelerate work on prioritised regional expressway · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The government is accelerating work on a four lane expressway
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: from Auckland all the way up to fund there's already
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the Poohoy to Welsford, beautiful stretch of road that is
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: in place now. It's been classed as a Road of
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: National Significance and is set to give better and safer
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: access to Northland, which is regularly cut off at the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Britain Durbins. Not cut off. You can go around, but
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: gosh it adds journey time, doesn't it. We're going to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: go to Darren Fisher, now, the Chief executive of North Chamber.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Good morning Darren. You're obviously excited about this, but are
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: you skeptical about the date because we haven't got one yet?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, good morning, right, obviously very excited here at
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Northland that you know, we've heard this, we've heard this
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: before and getting a digger bucket in the ground is
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: probably the second most important thing that's ever happened in
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: north And I'd say.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me what have they told you privately
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: as the government told you privately any dates?
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: No, they haven't, And I think there's still some work
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: to go on there as far as consents and obtaining
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: land and business cases go, but as a as a community,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: we're here to make sure we accelerate that as quickly
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: as we can.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: NCTA did resilience work on the brindurwins. Do you think
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: there was? It's resilient.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I think the events of the weekend show us
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: that it's not. No, I think someone's relatively lucky that
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: they weren't killed in that extra slip that happened on
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: the weekend. And it's still very fragile, and you know,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: we're still susceptible to being cut off. So no, in
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: the Papara Oakley Road, which is one of the diversion
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: roads you mentioned, that was also not up to scratch either.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: So you know, there's a lot of work to do
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: to make sure that not only northern but all of
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: New Zealand benefits from this four lane highly.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Because in the meantime, because let's be honest, it's going
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to take at least a decade you would say, wouln't
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: before anything, actually before we can actually drive on this thing.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So in the meantime, we're going to have this brindio
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and open closed, open clothes, open clothes.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I would expect to see, right and
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: I think that's a fear assessment absolutely.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Do you have any idea of the economic benefit to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the region if they would have fall Lane to fag
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: to day? Has anyone put a number on it?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah? The Northern Corporate Group, you know, very nicely put
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: a business case together that shows significant growth for the region.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: But I think it's a great opportunity for our population
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: to grow. And I think people take this current business
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: case and they say, oh, it's only two hundred thousand
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: people and it's a holiday highway. Well, you know that
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: couldn't be further from the truth. North and it's a
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: very strategic asset for all of New Zealand. And I
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: think our population will grow significantly on the back of
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: having a good connection to Auckland and that's our biggest
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: economic zone of New Zealand being Auckland and where it's
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: neighbor so everyone can benefit from this road.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Too, right, Darren, Thank you very much for your time.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Darren for shar the North Chamber Chief Executive with us
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: this morning.
• 2:55
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• 2:57
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• 2:59
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• 3:01
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