CAMBRIDGE NEWS | 1
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 7, 2018
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Your Local Paper
SEPTEMBER 7, 2018
Still living in limbo By Claire Robson
An email last week to Karapiro resident Geoff Fletcher and his wife Serena confirmed the news they didn’t want to hear, with no final decision on the new expressway between Cambridge and Piarere forthcoming in last Friday’s roading announcement by the Government. That means more uncertainty for the Fletcher family, which has been living on the same property since 1920. The New Zealand Transport Agency’s (NZTA) Central North Island Relationships Director, Parekawhia McLean, said the Cambridge to Piarere project is being reviewed “to evaluate whether it aligns with the new vision for our transport network”. This evaluation was not complete by the time of last Friday’s National Land Transport Plan (NLTP), so decisions on the entire corridor were not covered in the announcement, she explained. “This work will take up to four months to complete as our teams are not just looking at tweaks but are going back to first principles to establish what the right way forward is for these corridors,” Parekawhia said. That’s another four months of waiting for landowners in the path of the proposed expressway. To say that the Fletchers are embedded in the Karapiro community would be something of an understatement. Geoff has been president of the Karapiro Hall for the past 20 years, following in his father’s footsteps – his father, John, even helping install the trusses when the hall was built. Geoff has lived in the same place for his whole life, and still has no idea whether or not he will have to face the daunting prospect of both moving house and relocating his shed business. Continued on page 3
Geoff Fletcher still doesn’t know if he will have to move off the land his family has owned since 1920, as there is yet to be a final decision on the proposed new stretch of expressway between Cambridge and Piarere.
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