Re: F McNelly's letter ‘The price of progress?' (The Weekend Sun, January 20). Further to F McNelly's letter questioning the cost of the Tauranga City Council's so-called futureproofing of Cameron Rd.

The infrastructure part of this project is to enable intensification of Te Papa and is necessary if there is an uptake of apartment buildings up to six stories high, and with no carparking requirements will be 100 per cent necessary.

Maybe there will be some bus passengers? My personal opinion is that you would be a very gutsy developer to build apartment buildings in Tauranga and have no on-site carparking.

The walking, cycling, scootering, busing, light-controlled pedestrian crossing across Cameron Rd is not so necessary. In the meantime the smaller retailers are taking a hammering. In my case I would have a fair compensation claim against the project of $50,000 to date and there is more to come.

We are known in the TCC offices as The Eggs of Cameron Rd. 'To make an Omelette (futureproofing Cameron Road) you have to break a few eggs!”

In the meantime TCC's director of transport Brendan Bisley keeps quoting that no compensation is due to the 1981 Public Works Act. This act is specifically for the financial compensation for the acquisition of land for public works. It has nothing to do with business interruption.

Finally, in the Auckland Queen Street compensation claim there has been a settlement – though small and too late for most.

Most importantly, is that there is nothing being spent to improve the roading capacity for cars, vans, commercial vehicles that account for most probably 99 per cent of the people movements in Tauranga City.

B Sedcole, The Avenues.

Tauranga City Council responds: The Cameron Rd upgrades are designed to cater for future housing intensification along the Te Papa peninsula. It is expected that around 15,000 extra people will be living in the immediate area around Cameron Rd and the changes will make it easier for them to walk and cycle along the corridor to access businesses in their local area. The bus lanes are only part-time initially, so there will be on-street carparking available outside businesses when the bus lanes are not operating. The changes in Cameron Rd have not decreased the capacity for vehicles and the project maintains the two vehicle lanes in each direction along Cameron Rd.

Council needs to maintain and upgrade roads. Significant upgrades such as the one underway are only done every 25-30 years. The Local Government Act allows for this activity to be undertaken and this is why compensation is not paid when these works need to be completed.

Council is very aware that any construction roadworks impact on local businesses. Council and the Cameron Rd Joint Venture contractors work closely with business owners and residents along Cameron Rd to mitigate the impact of the works as much as possible. Planning of all traffic management for the Cameron Rd upgrades is done with this in mind, including, where possible, undertaking works at night so not to impact business access during the day and allocating resources to reduce the amount of time work is being done outside businesses. The Cameron Rd programme was affected by the Covid-19 shutdowns, wet weather delays and material supply issues, but it is expected that progress will improve now these impacts are reduced.