The developer behind two of Waipā’s biggest projects in the last decade has ruled out land near St Peter’s School in Cambridge for a third Waikato River bridge.
Matt Smith, Bridleways Estate
3Ms of Cambridge Development, in a joint venture with the private school, plans to build a 35-hectare residential suburb of 300 homes between Te Awa Lifecare Village and the Velodrome.
Supporters of a third bridge have long claimed this is the perfect spot, but 3Ms director Matt Smith disagrees.
“We don’t want heavy traffic running through residential areas. It’s no different from how those people under the blue blob felt last year,” he said, referring to Waipā District Council’s preferred plan to have a bridge run through long-established central streets.
He also called for New Zealand Transport Agency and the council to work closely on redistributing traffic around Cambridge by introducing Waikato Expressway on and off ramps at Tīrau Rd, near the golf course, and at Cambridge Rd West.
These would be better short-term options, he said than a third bridge which was years and several million dollars away.
“This is a residential environment that we’re building that’s also part of the school campus.”
Bridleways Estate
Smith revealed that the company he, his father Mike, and Mitch Claw own was less than three days away from lodging building consents with the council for a 300-pupil primary school in Bridleways Estate when the Education Ministry announced in July last year the project was on hold.
Design was to include a two-storey building with 13 teaching spaces, an administration building, library, resource room, hall, four spaces for learning and behaviour specialists, a learning support unit, caretaker’s shed, hard courts, fencing and extensive playgrounds.
3Ms and the council had already installed the infrastructure – water pipes, sewerage outlets, fibre connections, footpaths, bus bays, entrances and exits – when the government stopped construction.
Funding for the planning and design of a new school on 4.021 hectares in Cambridge West was first identified in 2019, after a ministry proposal document noted that Cambridge’s population was set to double by 2050, requiring provision for an added 400-600 primary and 500-1000 secondary students.
Infrastructure, crossings, roads, footpaths and bus bays were all in place in early 2024 when the government stalled plans for a school. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Education Minister Erica Stanford takes a tour of Cambridge Middle School with Evie Ball (left), principal Daryl Gibbs, Madison Keenan (right) and Rachel Rutter (out of shot).
Education minister Erica Stanford told The News last month the school would go ahead “eventually” but her government had inherited a situation where funding had not been put in place by the previous government.
3Ms invested $1 million of the $3.7 million for Papatakohe Park Destination Playground – which Smith describes as a legacy project -across the road to the abandoned school site and on future-proofing school infrastructure.
“We fought hard with the ministry at the time over that,” he said.
“You’re telling me they can’t fund the school today that was required 10 years ago.”
Publicity for the new school was prominent on the Bridleways Estate website
Sales in the estate, part of the council’s C2 growth cell which had consent for 2500 homes, a retirement village, supermarket and a school, stalled as families reassessed their options.
Smith, 53, who was born in Auckland but has lived in Cambridge for 30 years firstly working as a dairy farmer in St Kilda Rd and then as a developer, is astounded at the lack of urgency for the school.
“We’ve (Cambridge) made the commitment that we can provide for our growth. We’ve been the fastest growing rural town in the country for more than 10 years,” he said, increasing at a faster rate any government predictions.
Soils sits on part of the school site in Bridleways Estate
He wants to work with council and convert the school site into new parks and reserves land which will be required when other residential developments near Cambridge Raceway get underway.
Smith was milking cows in St Kilda when he learned construction on Waikato Expressway would cut his farm in half, so he and his father developed a plan to establish a subdivision with a rural lifestyle and residential feel.
Work began on St Kilda in 2013, and the first residents moved in the following year. On the other side of the expressway, they developed Saffron Estate taking on NZTA over acoustics, so the expressway made little audio impact on its urban boundary.
The Waikato University Management School graduate and father-of-five is enthusiastic about Cambridge.
The unformed road heading down towards Te Awa River Ride and the Waikato River where developer Matt Smith has ruled out a third bridge. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
“I get a little bit too passionate sometimes about what we’re trying to achieve, and sometimes that’s a little bit misunderstood. But if we are passionate, we’ll fight hard for it,” said Smith.
He understands why the district name is Waipā but said it makes it difficult to market Cambridge developments like Bridleways Estate because few people outside Waikato understand where Waipā is.
Hence the reason they recently sponsored the New Zealand squash championships in Christchurch because their Bridleways branding went on the front of the transportable court, above the T (the area above the centre line), and could be seen around the world.
They will keep their eye on the analytics and see if that investment paid off, but the sports-mad Smith got a lot of fun when friends from around New Zealand rang him about it.
Matt Smith in the Bridleways Estate development west of Cambridge. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
