Alan McDonald: Employers and Manufacturers Association Head of Advocacy on the Hawke's Bay Expressway getting an upgrade

An upgrade to a key Hawke's Bay road is expected to bolster the region.  

The Hawke's Bay Expressway, which carries 29,000 vehicles a day, is being widened from two lanes to four.  

The Government says starting work on the Road of National Significance early will bring construction forward 12-to-15 months.  

Employers and Manufacturers Association Head of Advocacy Alan McDonald told Ryan Bridge it'll massively improve access.  

He says the Road of National Significance programme is designed to make better connections between the economic hubs of the country. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Construction on the first Road of National Significance is underway.
Ground has been broken on the Hawk's Bay Expressway, which
is a twenty seven kilometers four lane highway set to
carry around twenty nine thousand vehicles a day. It's hoped
starting work early, we'll get the job done sooner. Alan
McDonald's with the Employees and Manufacturers Association. Allan, Good morning,
corning Eran, good to have you back on the show.

(00:20):
This is quite an important route. Tell us who uses it?
Why it's important in connecting to the port there.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, I think you've kind of nailed it just in
the intro. Ryan. It's important because it does link up
into the port, and if you look at a number
of the roads of National significance and the number of
the ports and the fast track application process for consent,
it's showing a bit of joined up thinking where we're
improving access for freight and for people around the ports

(00:50):
and those critical links into some of the more critical
economic areas of the country's growth and infrastructure.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
They reckon starting early will help reduce the overall construction
time and they should have it done twelve to fifteen
months sooner than planned. Are you you know quietly confident.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I think with all of these things that any big
piece of infrastructure, the quicker you get it going, the
less chance for big cost overruns, I think is probably
the best way to put it, because they never get cheaper,
so the longer you leave them, the more they cost.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Is this something that you can say, this will reduce
the cost of goods by x y and z, or
this will increase efficiencies by x y z, or is
it more The more of the stuff that we do,
the more attractive we are to businesses, the easier and
cheaper things should get.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh, look, there will be gains both ways. I mean
there will be some travel time gains and things like that.
There's only a thirty case section of road twenty nine ks,
so you know those gains are does that, but they're
not huge in terms of efficiencies. But it's again it's
about linking in all the various regional parts. So if

(02:10):
you look around that Roads of National Significance program, it's
all designed to make connections between the economic hubs of
the country better so that you can move stuff around better,
move freight between the ports, move freight to the ports,
all of those good things that just signal that we're

(02:32):
making progress on some of our infrastructure and it will
be easier and better to do business and move stuff around.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, big job at here, doesn't that Alan? Thank you
for that. Alan McDonald the Employers and Manufacturers Association.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
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