The consenting process for the biggest roading project Wellington has seen in decades began on Friday, and the project still has no money to build it and no date to start.
The New Zealand Transport Agency lodged its application under the Fast-track Approvals Act for the SH1 Wellington Improvements project, the bundle of works that would put a second tunnel through Mt Victoria, a second tunnel under The Terrace, and rebuild the roads around the Basin Reserve. NZTA called the lodgement a significant milestone that would allow officials to protect the route. Its project sponsor, Robyn Elston, told RNZ the application was now with the Environmental Protection Authority and would be published on NZTA’s website once it had been accepted as complete.
What is being consented is a substantial rearrangement of the inner city. Alongside the two new tunnels, traffic around the Basin Reserve would move in both directions rather than the current one-way loop. Vivian Street and Karo Drive in Te Aro would go to three lanes. Ruahine Street and Wellington Road in Kilbirnie would be widened on the route to the airport. NZTA has previously said the whole thing would cost somewhere between $2.9 billion and $3.8 billion to design, buy land for and build.
The land take is where the numbers get personal. NZTA has identified 176 properties it might need to buy outright, and another 146 where it might need to purchase the rights to the ground underneath for the tunnels. Wellington City Council officials have put the amount of Town Belt land required at about 3.2 hectares. So far $33 million has gone on contractors and consultants, and $185 million has been approved for design, consents and early works. Nothing has been approved for the actual construction.
That gap is the whole argument. In July the Government released its Major Transport Projects Pipeline, which sets out the phases for the Roads of National Significance programme. For the Wellington project the pipeline puts the immediate focus on route protection and consenting, with pre-construction work running from 2027 out to 2037 and no construction start date attached. National campaigned in 2023 on the second Mt Victoria tunnel as a major infrastructure priority and said it would consent the project and get construction under way before the 2026 election. Neither has happened. The same pipeline announcement pushed several other flagship roads into the long grass, including the East-West Link in Auckland, Petone to Grenada, and sections of the Northland Expressway, with Transport Minister Chris Bishop saying at the time that route protection, detailed design and property acquisition all have to come before main construction.
Bishop rejects the idea that the Wellington application is a paper exercise. In a statement he said it was not true the project was on a fast-track to nowhere, or that it was a ghost road. “The project is in the major project pipeline and we are committed to delivering it,” he said. “The SH1 Wellington Improvements project will unlock economic growth, improve productivity, and give Wellingtonians a safer, faster and more reliable connection between the region, the CBD, the hospital and the airport.”
Those two phrases came from the council table. At a Wellington City Council meeting earlier this month, councillors debated what officials should put to the fast-track panel, and the opponents were blunt. Motukairangi Eastern Ward councillor Jonny Osborne questioned why the project was in the process at all. “I would note the project has no funding attached or start date. So you really have to ask yourself why are they fast-tracking it? It’s fast-tracked to nowhere,” he said. “But anyway, that’s for them to decide, we at council must continue this charade.”
Osborne asked for assurances about the effects if the road is eventually built, saying the council expects that any risks arising from changed travel patterns are mitigated, especially around schools and other facilities used by children and at-risk communities. Green councillor Geordie Rogers, who called the project a ghost road, backed an amendment from Osborne that would have used the fast-track process to push for the pedestrianisation of Cuba Street. It failed. Mayor Andrew Little said it was a waste of time to use the fast-track process to relitigate a separate debate. “Our role as council is to mitigate the worst aspects of that project,” Little said.
The council is not united. Independent Pukehinau Lambton ward councillor Nicola Young has said she wants the project built, while doubting it will happen for years or even decades. What the council settled on was a list of concerns for the panel, asking that less Town Belt land be taken, that people can still walk safely around the Basin Reserve, that there is adequate walking and cycling space through the new tunnel, and that construction disruption is properly accounted for. The published design includes a 3.6 metre shared path for walking and cycling through the Mt Victoria tunnel, separated from traffic.
An EPA spokesperson said a panel can approve a project without government funding attached, provided it meets the statutory test of significant regional and national benefits. The EPA says decision times vary, but on average it takes about 117 working days for a fast-track application to be decided. The panel can approve the project, approve it with conditions, or decline it. On that timing a decision would land in the first months of 2027, well after voters have had their say.
Which is the part worth watching. Consent and designation would survive a change of government. Funding would not. A future Cabinet could inherit a fully consented road corridor, hundreds of purchased or encumbered properties and a bill for the earthworks it never chose. Or it could inherit a set of approvals it quietly leaves in a drawer. Transport spending has been one of the sharper dividing lines heading into this year’s election, and if you want to compare where the parties stand on roads, public transport and how they would pay for either, our voting tool lays the policies side by side.
More detail on the project is on the NZTA project page, and the lodgement was also reported by 1News and the NZ Herald.
Is consenting a road nobody has funded a sensible way to protect a route for the future, or an expensive way to keep a promise alive on paper? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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