Halswell Councillor Andrei Moore has raised serious concerns after discovering several significant road changes in his ward were made without the required approval from elected members.
Moore said council network planning staff directed the work, which included changes to the Milns Road and William Brittan Avenue intersection, a raised speed platform on Kennedys Bush Road, and new regulatory signs, road markings, and a raised platform on Quaifes Road.
“All of these were completed without coming to elected members for approval—essentially, illegally,” Moore said.
He said he was initially led to believe the changes didn’t need to go through elected members, as subdivision works typically don’t.
However, after raising questions during a Community Board briefing on February 27, it was confirmed the work involved significant changes to existing roads, not new ones.
“These will now come to the Community Board for retrospective approval, which is bizarre,” Moore said.
“Why would I want to vote for Milns and William Brittan intersection changes that were made more than two years ago and have led to two severe accidents in the last two months?”
Moore’s concerns follow growing frustration from residents about the intersection. On February 17, Halswell local Craig Payne posted photos of a serious crash at the site, calling it dangerous and urging the council to act.
“After months of telling the council that the intersection of Milns Road and William Brittan Ave was dangerous, it finally caused an accident,” Payne said. “It’s the only intersection where you have to give way to the left, which isn’t even legal or in the road code. It needs to be changed before injury becomes fatality.”
Moore said the incident reinforced why proper oversight was essential.
“The Milns and William Brittan intersection has been a right debacle,” he said. “At a December Community Board meeting, I moved a resolution seeking an explanation about how this intersection was approved two years ago without elected members ever being notified. Sure enough, this appears to be the response.”
Moore said he was “pissed off” by the revelations and concerned about the wider implications for growth infrastructure around new subdivisions.
“It’s really important to get this right; otherwise, we’ll be using ratepayer money to fix it later,” he said. “I’ve been pushing for a review of delegations because it was clear some decisions made by network planning staff on existing roads were not good ones. Now, I discover we were supposed to have some of those delegations all along.”
Moore said he would continue seeking accountability and an explanation for how the situation occurred.
“This is very unhelpful in any attempt to restore trust in local government democracy—especially with so much subdivision work still to come.”
The Christchurch City Councillor CEO has been approached for comment.
