Road Reserve Management

Last year Council consulted with the community on a draft Road Reserve Management Policy.

The draft Policy sets out our approach to managing activities within the road reserve and combines six existing policies to streamline and clarify controls and responsibilities for both private and public activities.

One such policy that is being absorbed into the draft Road Reserve Management Policy is the Road Reserves Fencing & Grazing Policy, which details the requirements for using road reserve frontages for stock grazing.

The existing Road Reserves Fencing & Grazing Policy identifies 21 specific high-speed rural roads (and all streets within urban areas) where stock grazing on the road reserve is not currently permitted.

The draft Road Reserve Management Policy expands this list to include 25 additional rural collector, arterial, or strategic roads where roadside grazing would no longer be permitted. These additional 25 ‘grazing-restricted roads’ are high-speed rural roads that tend to carry high volumes of traffic, increasing the risk to both stock on the roadside and vehicles on the road.

We're asking residents and users of these roads for your feedback on the proposed ‘Grazing-restricted roads’ in Appendix A' of the draft Road Reserve Management Policy.

You can read the draft Road Reserve Management Policy including the requirements for grazing on road reserve and Appendix A: Grazing-restricted roads here.

You can also have your say by completing the short survey below before Sunday 29 September 2024.

Background

Council have been working on streamlining policies and as part of this review the Roading Team have combined six different policy into one - The Draft Road Reserve Management Policy.

The six current policies include:

• Rural Seal Extension Policy
• Private Funding of Seal Extension Policy
• Formation of Unformed Roads Policy
• Road Reserves Fencing & Grazing Policy
• Stock Underpasses Policy
• Vehicle Crossings, Entranceway and Driveway Surfacing Materials Policy

When drafting the policy, additional roading functions that did not have formal policies in place were included to provide clarity and consistency. These include:

• Roadside berms – clarifying maintenance responsibilities for urban and rural berms as well as expectations for existing and potential trees and hedges
• Unformed legal roads (known as paper roads) – who’s responsibility for maintenance as well as criteria for occupation, formation, and stopping
• Road corridor use including storage – defining conditions for temporary use of the road
• Utilities – identifying how utilities should be installed in the road
• Work zone traffic management – setting requirements for safe traffic management.

When considering this draft policy the team had to carefully balance the level of service provided on our roading network with the financial implications for ratepayers. It is useful to note that any increase in the level of service will need to be met by an increase in rates.

The driver for this policy review is to ensure that the Council’s published policies remain current and relevant. Merging these policies helps to ensure an effective and efficient policy structure and helps to streamline the review process. Maintaining these policies separately over time is more resource intensive.