Arterial road stage one opening delayed until end of January

Those building stage one of Queenstown's arterial road have confirmed they won't have the route open by Christmas as earlier indicated.

Instead, the $128 million section of road is now scheduled to open at the end of January.

While traffic will be able to move through the area from then, additional roadworks related to the project will continue until the end of September, with October the target for final handover to the Queenstown Lakes District Council.

However despite running behind schedule, the job is looking to be running to budget - its latest bumped up budget, that is.

A report from Kā Huanui a Tāhuna, the alliance delivering the project, included for discussion at today's full council meeting, says the job is "currently on track to complete within current budget provision with greater certainty being obtained on the 'Cost to Complete' assessment as work progresses".

In February, the mayor and councillors signed off a budget top up for the project of almost $18 million, 10 months after approving an additional $21 million, bringing the total budget for the under-a-kilometre route to $128 million.

According to the report, "poorer ground conditions" where anchors are being installed at Malaghan Wall are responsible for the delay in opening the road.

The report also includes another heads up for motorists, once stage one of the arterial road is open in the New Year, the Stanley Street and Ballarat Street intersection will close to allow for a new stormwater pipe to be installed across the road.

The arterial road, designed to allow vehicles to bypass the increasingly congested Queenstown CBD, is to be completed in three stages.

Included in the Long Term Plan, set to be adopted at this week's council meeting, is $16 million for early design work and land acquisitions for stages two and three of the arterial road, however no funding is earmarked in the ten year plan for any construction work to begin.

Without funding secured to complete stages two and three, stage one has been dubbed 'the road to nowhere'.