𝐍𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲: $𝟑𝟎𝟎𝐊 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤

14 May 2025

Taupō Councillor Duncan Campbell reporting—as I see things anyway.

Next Thursday 22 May, Council will workshop the Northern Access Transport Study—the same study I was excluded from contributing to, despite this being squarely within my professional area of expertise. It’s also the same study for which last July I had to table a formal Notice of Motion just to make a workshop happen at all.

As with the Waters Done Well endeavour, I was again denied PDF access to the underlying reports thus preventing third-party review. Once again the documents remain locked behind a security-walled read-only platform, under the unsubstantiated banner of “confidentiality.” This obstructive pattern I have already referred to the Ombudsman.

This study underpins a $70M or so line item in our Long-Term Plan, and has received minimal scrutiny from elected members outside the Mayor’s handpicked steering group of Crs Taylor, O’Loughlin, and Williamson, and despite my efforts throughout. The public also, has been provided virtually no substantive information about what’s being planned or why. For a project of such significance to the constituents of Taupo, I say these are acts of audacity if not outright negligence.

Aside from these much less-than-transparent goings on, at the workshop next week I’ll be asking some questions including:

• Why was the option of three-laning the existing Control Gates Bridge not seriously evaluated? If that happened, is a second bridge even really necessary?
• On what evidence are traffic signal intersections being preferred over roundabouts for Taupo township? The report inferred that multi-lane roundabouts are unsuitable in areas with high pedestrian/cyclist activity—yet no supporting data is provided, and clearly some New Zealand cities do use them in these situations.

These are basic questions which should have been properly addressed very early on, but simply haven’t. My professional experience is that when decision-makers are much less informed than the consultants they rely on, poor outcomes are often inevitable. I see it as my job to help prevent this happening, and in fact it was a reason many people voted for me in the first place.

Is there anything 𝘺𝘰𝘶 would like me to ask?

Quote for the day is from Niccolo Machiavelli:

“𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥”

Facebook here