Council criticised for snow response

John Christie
John Christie
The Otago Chamber of Commerce is taking the Dunedin City Council to task over its response to last month's snowfall.

In the chamber's July newsletter, chief executive John Christie said because roads remained closed "far longer than expected", businesses faced financial loss by closing for the day or "struggling on" with reduced staff.

"Productivity was lost and businesses and their workers were exposed to risks getting to work and returning home."

Mr Christie said he had been contacted by several businesses and had written to Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin on their behalf.

"The main question posed to the mayor seeks clarification on the contractor's standards of performance.

"We also asked: What is the city doing about ensuring this does not happen in the future?"

The snow and ice on June 17 created treacherous road conditions and police reported "dozens and dozens" of crashes.

State Highway 1 was blocked for several hours by snow, ice and a jack-knifed truck.

Hundreds of people did not get to work or were late.

Mr Christie said the snow had been forecast for days but Dunedin was not as prepared as it could have been.

He considered the main problem to be a layer of snow on top of ice.

"Advice given to the chamber suggests this was not effectively dealt with and, as a consequence, the roads became more hazardous."

He believed the council did not fulfil its responsibilities.

"The council did not keep its end of the bargain in keeping the roads open and passed back the cost to ratepayers - a cost already paid for through rates."

Mr Christie offered to work with the council to improve its response in future.

Mr Chin told the Otago Daily Times yesterday he was aware of the chamber's concerns and had called a meeting for tomorrow night.

"All of his people who feel they are disaffected in some way will meet with me and relevant members of staff and contractors so that they can understand just what the expectations are and can have a debrief on what happened on the day."

Mr Chin said when snow and ice hits Dunedin it "will never be possible" to have all streets open at all times.

". . . because it would be completely unaffordable; because we will not have enough equipment ever to be able to cover the whole city."

mark.price@odt.co.nz

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