No time for Covid complacency, say Taranaki leaders
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Taranaki businesses, leaders hopefully anticipating move to level 2
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Jane Matthews05:00, May 01 2021
GLENN JEFFREY/Stuff
Taranaki has the lowest level of “housing poverty” in the country. That hasn’t stopped the number of people needing emergency housing doubling in one year. (File photo)
At a point when a mother and son had nowhere else to go, New Plymouth s Jo Massey gave up her lounge and shed for months on end, so they had a roof over their heads. Massey offered the pair a place to sleep because she knew them, but she is one of the many doing their bit to alleviate the pain the lack of public, transitional and emergency housing is causing hundreds families in Taranaki.
Neil Holdom.
Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Holdom said people were dying on State Highway 3 while the transport agency replaced its original plans with what he called half-arsed alternatives, cutting millions of dollars off the budget in the process.
Since July 2015 seven people have been killed on State Highway 3 between Waitara and New Plymouth, and 27 have been seriously injured.
A toll with an estimated social cost of $43.3 million, according to the New Plymouth District Council s submission to the 2021 Regional Land Transport Plan.
Holdom said there was genuine excitement about plans for the stretch of road when they were first aired in 2015.