Roading

You can now submit an online enquiry to our Roading team. Be sure to fill in all relevant information to help us respond to you as quickly as possible. Please read our eServices Terms and Conditions.

Do you want to know about:

Road maintenance

Dust suppression outside your property

Preventing the spraying of vegetation outside your property

The Gore District Council maintains 896km of roads. The majority of our roads (538km) are unsealed. There are also 114 bridges and 100km of footpaths in the District.

We fund road maintenance and renewal work from rates as well as receiving a subsidy for specific projects from the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA).

The NZTA is also responsible for state highways in the District.

Who to contact if there is a problem

If you are aware of any issues with roads or footpaths, please tell us, online or phone 03 209 0330.

You will find all the forms required to undertake various activities on our roads, such as applying oil to a metal road, on our Forms page.

Who looks after the roads?

All work on roads in the District is carried out by contractors employed by the Council. Our current contractors are

Abernethy Contracting, K2, Fulton Hogan - gravel and sealed road maintenance, vegetation control, signs and bridge maintenance
Powernet - street light maintenance
Fulton Hogan - resealing

Gravel road grading

There are a number of factors that determine how frequently gravel roads are graded. The most important are

the amount of traffic on the road, and
weather conditions

Other factors include whether sections of a road are hilly or windy.

Our gravel roads are inspected on a four, eight or 12 weekly cycle, depending on these factors.

A road is only graded if an assessment shows it needs to be done. This avoids the cost of excessive grading. A compacting roller that is attached to the grader extends the grading cycle.

Gravel road remetalling

The District's roads are split into four blocks for remetalling, with one block remetalled each year. You can find the schedule in our Annual Plan.

Dust suppression

The Council does not carry out dust suppression on our gravel roads. However, residents close to gravel roads are allowed to put vegetable oil, new light fuel or new lubricating oil on short sections of road where dust is an issue. Applying used oil onto a road requires a resource consent from Environment Southland.

The work must be carried out by a contractor and a permit is required. There are conditions to ensure the environment is protected and there are no hazards for road users.

Application form to apply dust suppressant to unsealed roads [PDF, 1.4 MB]

State highways

There are five state highways that service the Gore District, reflecting its position as a hub for travel to Otago, Central Otago, Fiordland and Southland.

They are

State Highway 1
State Highway 90
State Highway 93
State Highway 94
State Highway 96

NZTA and its consultant Opus manage the state highways in the District.

However, you can ring the Council about any state highway issues and we will pass the message on to the relevant organisation.

Some activities, such as street lighting and street sweeping, are carried out by the Council with funding from NZTA.

Street lights

Most of the street lights in the District are high pressure sodium (HPS) lamps, which have an orange glow. There are no plans to replace these with the LED lamps as the Council gets power for municipal use at a low rate, courtesy of the Penny Per Unit Agreement.

Vegetation control No Spray register

Weed spraying of vegetation on urban and rural roadsides is carried out in sprint and autumn. The spraying includes the control of rural pest plants and vegetation on footpaths and kerbs.

Residents can opt not to have their frontage sprayed by applying to the Council to go on our No Spray Register. This must be done each year, so if you were on last year’s list you must still apply this year.

To have your property included on the No Spray Register you have to fill in an application form and either email to info@goredc.govt.nz or drop it into our main office in Gore or the Mataura service centre.

No Spray Register form [PDF, 336 KB]

Please include a plan clearly and accurately showing your boundaries marked "No Spray". You can include an image from Google Maps if you wish.

Rural applicants must still ensure they keep the road reserve fronting their properties free of noxious weeds and urban applicants must ensure the footpaths and kerb lines are free of vegetation.

An application for inclusion on the No Spray Register is conditional upon the applicant providing written agreement to control their own vegetation to the standard required by the Council. If the property owner fails to keep the frontage in good order, the address will be removed from the register and included in the spraying programme.

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