Rural Affairs Minister Damien O’Connor today welcomed changes to regionally distributed (R) funding for land transport.

Under new rules regionally distributed funding can be used more flexibly to assist with road renewal activity for rebuilding or replacing existing roads and infrastructure. Until now, regionally distributed funding has been available only for new capital improvement projects.

Land Transport New Zealand will also consider on a case-by-case basis providing additional financial assistance from these regionally distributed funds to help councils pay their local share for renewal activities.

“These changes will help those rural districts with large roading networks and limited rating bases to deliver their road renewal programmes within the timeframe sought,” Mr O’Connor said.

"It also means that some districts which have small populations can apply to call on greater central government assistance, which takes pressure off ratepayers.
In exceptional cases where ability to pay is a clear problem, central government will pay for up to half of the rate payers share of the road renewal project."

Details of the changes were announced today by Transport Minister Annette King, at the Rural and Provincial Sector local government Annual General Meeting in Dunedin.

Regionally distributed funding was established in 2005 and is distributed regionally, based on population, for capital improvement programmes that do not have sufficient national priority to receive nationally distributed funding.

Previously, regionally distributed funding was restricted to capital improvement activities and there was no mechanism to allow for additional financial assistance if districts were having difficulty financing their road renewal programmes. While road maintenance will continue to be given priority for nationally distributed funding, these changes mean that local authorities may be able to access regionally distributed funds in some cases, where renewals are a higher priority in the immediate future than road improvements.