by Geoffrey Churchman

Eva and I were invited yesterday to a morning tea with about 20 Waikanae National Party members to hear what progress has been made on central government issues that affect locals in the past 12 months. The topics can be summarized as Healthcare Facilities, Transport and Education.

They are non-partisan topics and I imagine the same questions and discussion would happen among Labour Party members.

Healthcare: it’s unlikely Kapiti will get its own hospital within 10 years, the problem isn’t only cost but a shortage of nurses and doctors to staff one. We’ve already seen the Waikanae beach medical centre close because of this shortage. One guy mentioned that he had a severe nose-bleed one night and called an ambulance: one wasn’t available, so his wife drove him to Kenepuru Hospital. “You could die from this, you need to go to Emergency in Wellington,” he was told there. But another woman who had a heart attack had more success, an ambulance showed up in 10 minutes and she was in Wellington in another 25 minutes. Another guy suggested a private-public partnership could build a Kapiti hospital

Education: everyone knows how choc-a-bloc the two primary schools are and the town needs another one. We may see that with the Waikanae North fast-tracked housing development. Tim also spoke about the need for tertiary education schooling: not just for medical personnel but also tradies in construction with apprentice training. We don’t want to see people do long commutes elsewhere for these as they may relocate elsewhere.

Transport: Passenger trains that will continue north from Waikanae: the new tri-mode multiple unit trains are not due to arrive until 2029; in the meantime Tim says he is trying to get another run each day each way for the Capital Connection train which comes down in the morning from Palmerston North then just sits in the Wellington railyard for most of the day before going back in the evening.

Double track and electrification from Waikanae to Otaki was a National Party promise in 2020, but people voted for the Jacinda regime instead which severely depleted the government coffers, and there is the need to remedy the single-track pinch points such as the Waikanae River bridge so that a faster timetable is enabled. He is still pushing for the Peka Peka full ‘Ewy’ interchange which suffered the same fate. As it’s not that a big-ticket item, he is hopeful he can achieve it before 2026 and he got the NZTA to keep the land that had been earmarked for it. But the big-ticket item, which is definitely happening with work starting next year, is the continuation of the ‘Ewy’ to north of Levin.

Congestion at the Elizabeth Street level crossing. This is getting ever worse and Tim says the emergency crossing that was put in place should become a second normal crossing to alleviate it.