The game is not over. SaveKāpiti has today lodged an appeal against the decision of the Board of Inquiry into the MacKays to Peka Peka expressway.
“We believe that the Board has misunderstood and therefore misapplied the law around the baseline that the proposal should be considered against, said spokesman Mark Harris.
“In our view, the baseline should be the Western Link Road project but NZTA has only assessed the M2PP against no road at all (otherwise known as the ‘do nothing’ scenario). The WLR had been consented and approved and was in the District Plan and should therefore have been considered as the existing environment.”
This point of law is supported by the High Court decision in Queenstown Central Limited vs. Queenstown Lakes District Council (2006).
It is important because the benefits and costs of any project must be measured against the appropriate environment so they can be judged on their true merits.
“Measuring the M2PP against no road at all means that NZTA can claim benefits that would already have existed under the WLR. The expressway has fewer benefits at a much higher cost and, in fact, erodes some of the benefits that the WLR would have delivered. In addition, we would already have been enjoying the benefits of the WLR which was due to have been completed in 2012.”