Council Committed to Manukau Rd Working Well

Employment, congestion, business development, difficulties for pedestrians and a major vehicle thoroughfare. You name it, good and bad, Manukau Road has it. Recognising this, Council held a two day design workshop last month as part of its planning work to ensure that Manukau Road keeps functioning well into the future.


“Manukau Road and its surrounding area have been undergoing considerable change in recent years, and this is likely to continue. The workshop helped Council to identify the current issues and to start formulating a vision of how the community wants the area to look, work and feel into the future. We will then work on how this can be achieved,” says Franklin District Council CEO, Sally Davis.


Facilitated by Kobus Mentz, an urban planning and design specialist from Urbanismplus, and Jim Higgs, a transport planning specialist from TTM Consulting, the workshop was attended by over 60 participants, including Council representatives and other stakeholders from the community.


Although the workshop was only the beginning of the process, it was clear to Council that one solution isn’t going to work for the whole of Manukau Road and that a creative, integrated and multifaceted solution will be needed.


“Pedestrians, businesses, shoppers, commuters and residents expect different parts of the Manukau Road corridor to achieve different things. The northern end that links with the Town Centre, for example, is different from the southern part of the road. The workshop helped Council to more fully understand the views of those keenly interested in the future of Manukau Road,” says Sally.


Council expects to receive a report back from the workshop facilitators in February and will then plan the next steps.