Road work near the Athalmer Business Park is on hold until the District of Invermere comes up with an engineered road plan for the area.

While $127,000 of road work was scheduled to take place on the industrial roads around the park this year, director of development services Rory Hromadnik told council fixing the roads in piecemeal fashion won’t solve some of the area’s major drainage concerns.

“It’s not the roads, it’s the road design itself. Drainage is an issue, we’re at water table a lot of the time,” he said at the district council’s most recent meeting. “We need an overall plan. We need to get what the roads need to look like, where the sumps are.”

Hromadnik said leaving the roads in their current state won’t pose a safety risk because the planned work was also meant to address a drainage issue.

“The centre of the road has become the low point so water collects there,” he said. “It’s not a safety issue.”

Instead of spending the money on roadwork now, about $30,000 of the paving cash will go to an engineering plan and some minor crack repair. The remaining cash will be set aside until 2012.

As the plan is developed, district staff will also work with the Athalmer Business Park to create an internal signage strategy and look at ways to improve access into the area.