It is only 500m of road in the backblocks of Southland — Waikaia to be precise.
But it led to one Southland council questioning its own existence last week, saying it owned something, paid for its upkeep, yet had no control over it.
At a Southland District Council meeting last week, the council found itself in something of a pickle, caught out by timing and talking about principles.
The Waikaia community in Northern Southland has built some mountain bike trails in the Waikaia Forest and with the anticipated increase in the number of cyclists, wanted to change the speed limit of the road into the forest.
The Ardlussa Community Board had consulted with the community, had a public meeting, and had community agreement to change the speed limit on the road from 100kmh to 60kmh.
But the long arm of the government, and its far-reaching blanket speed laws, became involved.
Council strategy and partnerships manager Vibhuti Chopra said the policy around speed limts had changed with the new government.
The central themes to the government’s rule changes were to reverse and prevent the implementation of blanket speed limits.
The changes significantly lifted the requirements for councils to set and substantiate speed limit changes.
Certain roads had specific speed limits and the road in question in Waikaia —Willington St — had a set limit of 80kmh, not what the community wanted.
Any change would have to be approved by the Land Transport director and good reason is needed for a change.
Cr Matt Wilson said the council was now being subject to box-ticking exercises which made no sense.
"Can we not just make this decision?
"Implement the speed decision immediately and give the community what they want," he said.
"If there is any issue with the procedure, that is something we can have a conversation about."
Staff pointed out the 60kmh limit would not be legal if not approved by the director.
Cr Wilson said it was a road in Southland and the Waikaia community knew more about the road and its risks than someone sitting behind a desk in Wellington.
"What is the point of local representation?
"We might as well wrap up local government if we adhere to these rules ... we need to challenge some of these rules which have us jumping through all these hoops.
"This problem should be solved locally.
"We have a government which campaigned on growth, campaigned on getting the economy going.
"We are talking about 500m of road.
"It [changing the speed limit] is going to add a whole 17 seconds to the trip — I don’t think this is going to break the economy.
Mayor Rob Scott agreed.
"It is about the principle.
"We have got a local community, a local town road, we are paying for it — and that is another issue — yet we can not make a change," he said.
He said this sort of issue was happening up and down the country as speed limits imposed by councils were reversed.
"It is one of our roads in one of our towns ... we want to support them."
The council decided it would go ahead with a recommendation penned by Mr Wilson.
It unanimously agreed to implement the proposed 60kmh speed limit change without delay, subject to approving associated costs for signage/installation through the unbudgeted expenditure process.
It noted the information of the report, anticipating the submission will be approved by the director of Land Transport.
