Kainga Ora will spend more than $12 million this year on improvements to homes across the Bay of Plenty, Waikato and Taranaki.

About $6.54m will be spent on exterior painting, $4.54m on new roofing, about $630k on fencing and $345k on driveway safety improvements.

Kainga Ora national maintenance and upgrade manager Angela Pearce says the work is already underway in these regions.

'This will provide additional work for trades and 1,153 customers can expect to have some or all of these improvements made to their home this year.”

Kainga Ora currently has 66,253 homes across New Zealand that are occupied by 189,000 people.
The driveway improvements will mean 222 homes with children under five will be safer.

'Where there are young children under 5, the home will get a secure play area as part of our driveway safety programme.”

There will also be signage and convex mirrors to aid drivers in multi-unit complexes, as well as speed bumps at standalone homes.

Safekids Aotearoa director Melissa Wilson says evidence from child driveway-injury research indicates that fewer children will be injured in driveways when property and driveway design separates.

To date, more than 20,407 Kainga Ora homes have had these improvements.