By John Freer

Fixing roads around the Coromandel Peninsula is going to cost billions of dollars.

Mayor Len Salt yesterday said this was the investment required to get roads to where they were resilient and appropriate to provide confidence to business and visitors to the region.

CFM interviewed the mayor as the region was experiencing another storm with hillsides giving away and closing both state highways and council roads.

Len said the immediate need was for $500 million or half a billion dollars which his council had laid out to the various Government Ministers and their departments.

He said it was an investment that he was not shy about.

The mayor also discussed the reason for not supporting a bypass being used to get traffic flowing on SH25A.

He said he was confident there was no viable short-term solution and that the repair decision would be known in two weeks.

Click on the link below to listen to the full interview.