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Speaker 1: The government is accelerating work on a four lane expressway

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Speaker 1: from Auckland all the way up to fund there's already

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Speaker 1: the Poohoy to Welsford, beautiful stretch of road that is

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Speaker 1: in place now. It's been classed as a Road of

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Speaker 1: National Significance and is set to give better and safer

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Speaker 1: access to Northland, which is regularly cut off at the

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Speaker 1: Britain Durbins. Not cut off. You can go around, but

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Speaker 1: gosh it adds journey time, doesn't it. We're going to

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Speaker 1: go to Darren Fisher, now, the Chief executive of North Chamber.

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Speaker 1: Good morning Darren. You're obviously excited about this, but are

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Speaker 1: you skeptical about the date because we haven't got one yet?

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, good morning, right, obviously very excited here at

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Speaker 2: Northland that you know, we've heard this, we've heard this

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Speaker 2: before and getting a digger bucket in the ground is

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Speaker 2: probably the second most important thing that's ever happened in

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Speaker 2: north And I'd say.

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Speaker 1: Can you tell me what have they told you privately

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Speaker 1: as the government told you privately any dates?

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Speaker 2: No, they haven't, And I think there's still some work

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Speaker 2: to go on there as far as consents and obtaining

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Speaker 2: land and business cases go, but as a as a community,

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Speaker 2: we're here to make sure we accelerate that as quickly

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Speaker 2: as we can.

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Speaker 1: NCTA did resilience work on the brindurwins. Do you think

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Speaker 1: there was? It's resilient.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think the events of the weekend show us

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Speaker 2: that it's not. No, I think someone's relatively lucky that

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Speaker 2: they weren't killed in that extra slip that happened on

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Speaker 2: the weekend. And it's still very fragile, and you know,

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Speaker 2: we're still susceptible to being cut off. So no, in

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Speaker 2: the Papara Oakley Road, which is one of the diversion

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Speaker 2: roads you mentioned, that was also not up to scratch either.

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Speaker 2: So you know, there's a lot of work to do

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Speaker 2: to make sure that not only northern but all of

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Speaker 2: New Zealand benefits from this four lane highly.

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Speaker 1: Because in the meantime, because let's be honest, it's going

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Speaker 1: to take at least a decade you would say, wouln't

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Speaker 1: before anything, actually before we can actually drive on this thing.

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Speaker 1: So in the meantime, we're going to have this brindio

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Speaker 1: and open closed, open clothes, open clothes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I would expect to see, right and

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Speaker 2: I think that's a fear assessment absolutely.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any idea of the economic benefit to

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Speaker 1: the region if they would have fall Lane to fag

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Speaker 1: to day? Has anyone put a number on it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? The Northern Corporate Group, you know, very nicely put

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Speaker 2: a business case together that shows significant growth for the region.

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Speaker 2: But I think it's a great opportunity for our population

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Speaker 2: to grow. And I think people take this current business

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Speaker 2: case and they say, oh, it's only two hundred thousand

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Speaker 2: people and it's a holiday highway. Well, you know that

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Speaker 2: couldn't be further from the truth. North and it's a

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Speaker 2: very strategic asset for all of New Zealand. And I

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Speaker 2: think our population will grow significantly on the back of

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Speaker 2: having a good connection to Auckland and that's our biggest

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Speaker 2: economic zone of New Zealand being Auckland and where it's

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Speaker 2: neighbor so everyone can benefit from this road.

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Speaker 1: Too, right, Darren, Thank you very much for your time.

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Speaker 1: Darren for shar the North Chamber Chief Executive with us

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Speaker 1: this morning.

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