Dear New Zealand Police,

Are Police aware that a number of streets in Christchurch RCA, until recently, had posted speed limit signage which was never formally ratified by Christchurch City Council so never had legal effect?

What is Police's strategy for refunding infringements issued in error on these streets (if any)?

Yours faithfully,

Cody C

Dear Ministerial Services,

I believe you have answered my first question, which is "No".

Ombudsman advice to Agencies (https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/site...), ref. page 13, states:

a) "To be a valid OIA request, the information sought must be ‘specified with due particularity’."; and
b) "If there is any uncertainty about the scope of the request, clarification should be
sought from the requester."

As you sought amendment or clarification outside 7 working days and I did not provide amendment or clarification within 20 working days (ref. page 14), this request is now considered overdue. However, I will clarify the situation within my request below.

Christchurch City Council (CCC) is required to maintain an accurate, up-to-date, register of Resolutions (including Speed Limits) under their "Traffic and Parking Bylaw 2017".

However, CCC failed to do update their Resolutions since approximately 2018 and could not produce the Register for inspection when requested to do so under LGOIMA, as they were required to do under the Bylaw.

This was not an isolated incident. CCC only became aware of this issue on, or around, the time I contacted them and sought to retroactively push through a number of already-posted speed limits through as part of another consultation.

With only about 5 minutes researching I discovered that, for example, James Hight Drive (Halswell), had never been Resolved, despite having already had a posted 30 km/h speed limit sign for a number of years.

This puts Police in a precarious position where they may have issued an infringement based on signage that may not have had any legal effect.

In the case of James Hight Drive, the speed limit would then revert back to the urban default (50 km/h). This could mean anyone issued an infringement, say at a speed greater than 30 km/h but below 50 km/h, on James Hight Drive may be deemed invalid if appealed.

So, back to my second question: How do you plan to approach this issue?

Yours sincerely,

Cody C