‘This town has to get its act together’: MP comes out swinging on state of Timaru
Tuesday, 30 September 2025
Rangitata MP James Meager has waded into the long-running saga over the condition of a stretch of State Highway 1 through Timaru, coming out swinging at the council, the national transport agency and a developer.
In a post on social media referring to a story by The Timaru Herald about proposed changes to a development on the outskirts of town, Meager left his followers in no doubt as to his position on the ongoing roading saga and Timaru’s attitude towards growth.
Meager said “frustratingly” he had been working on getting a solution for the stretch of road outside the development, which had prompted concerns about its physical state and delays in recent years.
“The state of SH1 past The Showgrounds is a disgrace. Having grass growing in the middle of SH1 is a disgrace,” he wrote.
“The idea of ripping up that road again and again because we can’t all come together to work out a straightforward solution is nuts.”
There are three main players involved in the ongoing saga over repairs to a culvert under SH1, the state of the road and the intersection at the entrance to the Showgrounds development.
They are the Timaru District Council, NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi and the developer of The Showgrounds.
“I am trying very hard for a solution, but my perception is that there are a lot of people playing the blame-game rather than thinking what can they each do to find a solution,” Meager said.
“Nobody wants the hill of dirt or that shitty road there for another decade, our town deserves better,” he continued, in reference to the stockpile of dirt amassed at the development.
Meager’s lengthy post did not just address the roading issues, also taking aim at Timaru.
“The time has come where this town has to get its act together and get things done,” he wrote.
“If we don’t grow, we will wither and shrink, and Timaru will become a footnote in history.
“Dithering will cost far more than whatever the perceived impact on the CBD of more retail and hospitality elsewhere is.”
Citing a proposed development across SH1 from The Showgrounds, on the corner of Grants Rd, Meager said it made the “opposition to smaller retail and commercial at the Showgrounds nuts”.
It also meant the consent conditions placed on the Showgrounds development now looked “completely outdated”, he said.
Meager said it was people living and working in Timaru’s CBD that would make the town grow.
“People make a place great, not planners and regulators.”
Timaru is one of the two large towns in the electorate Meager represents, the other being Ashburton.
On Monday, the Government announced sweeping changes to earthquake-prone building regulations that it expects could save Timaru District building owners $255 million in projected strengthening costs.
“Our changes to the earthquake prone building rules will greatly help this,” Meager wrote, “saving buildings owners millions in remediation that could be used instead to drop rents, upgrade and update interiors, consider residential and generally give the place some life.”
Meager said he believed there was an opportunity to do all of the work at The Showgrounds in one hit and he planned to write to all parties this week calling for action.
He said he wanted NZTA to better publicise the work it had been doing to facilitate work at the culvert and intersection with the developer and would ask central government to support the rebuild of SH1 to get a functioning intersection.
He wanted the council to alter the consent conditions to allow immediate and rapid progress.
He also wanted the developer to better outline the economic opportunities in the Showgrounds and Smithfield area that would complement rather than compete with the CBD.
Meager challenged Timaru’s voluntary CBD Group to consider the future of the town’s CBD and what the community wanted.
“It’s clear it won’t be big-box developments, and it’s clear we all want a vibrant, humming town centre that we can all be proud of.
“We need to seriously consider our region’s attitude towards growth. We need to grow South Canterbury if we want it to be a place our kids and grandkids want to work, live, play and raise a family.
“There is so much to love about our region, we have everything to offer, and we can’t let pessimism and people obsessed with controlling and regulating and restriction stop our pioneering spirit.”
In the post, Meager asked anyone who agreed with him and wanted to help to contact him.