Engaging with residents – and engaging residents.
Having a gang of roadworkers busy in front of your home or business is generally not on most people’s wish list –so you can imagine the team’s surprise when a resident of the old State Highway One approached with chocolate cake.
Our team is aware that, at times, our work can be disruptive, but we also hope that when it’s finished, looking good and keeping people safe, the disruption for people will have been worth it.
“Our workers really enjoy the interactions we have with our community. We value the friendly waves and chats over fences, and when residents are this hospitable, it helps make us and the work we are doing feel appreciated, even though we know it can at times be a bit of a nuisance,” says M2PP Senior Project Engineer Jake Allen.
As the work includes placing new pipework in the ground across the front of driveways, residents’ access needs to be restricted for short periods. Once that work is done, a second team then replaces footpath and kerbing, resulting in a second, unavoidable disruption for affected residents. We know this can be an inconvenience for residents who are home during the day.
“We try our best to keep residents informed of when our work will impact on them,” says Jake. “We generally give a heads-up a few weeks before starting work in the front of their property, and then a rough timeframe of when access to their driveway is going to be affected. Once we know the date we’ll be working across their driveway we try to reach people at home to discuss alternative parking and access options while construction takes place.”
Jake said the team are doing their best to minimise disruption and suggested the best way for residents to stay informed is to email their daytime contact phone numbers to our team as a back-up, just in case they’re not at home when we do letter drops and door knocks. This is especially important for shift workers and people who may leave their residence several times a day and miss the team’s visits, or not appreciate daytime door-knocks if they’re trying to recover from night shift.
Residents can email us with their contact details or to organise arrangements at m2ppRevocation@nzta.govt.nz
|