Roads outside two schools in the Whakatāne district will see speed limit changes within the next few weeks.

Due to changes in legislation, Whakatāne District Council must reverse its decision to create 30kmh speed limits outside the two schools by May 1.

Te Mahoe School Road and Te Mahoe Village Road near Te Mahoe School and Waimana and Raroa roads near Waimana School, which are both currently 30kmh areas, will both be made 50kmh speed limit areas with a variable 30kmh speed limit during school arrival and leaving times.

These speed limit changes are mandatory because of new legislation brought in last year.

Land Transport Rule 2024 required local councils to reverse speed limit reductions introduced by the Labour government in 2020.

The new law states that because these 30kmh speed limits were set in residential areas since the beginning of 2020, with the main reason for the speed limit reduction being that there was a school in the vicinity, the speed limit change must be reversed.

All schools must have variable speed limits in place by July 1 next year, but the Whakatāne council hopes to introduce these for the two schools at the same time as the reversal of the speed limit.

This will be reliant on the New Zealand Transport Agency director for transport approving the variable speed limit within the next few weeks.

The cost of changing the signs for the schools is $26,000 which will be 65 percent co-funded by the transport agency. The cost includes one electronic sign costing $20,000 for Te Mahoe School and three static signs costing $6000 for Waimana School.

The council voted to make the changes at a meeting of the infrastructure and planning committee last week.

Councillor Andrew Iles commented that, “It seems to be a bit of a ping pong game every time central government changes as to these speed reviews”.