Maintenance contractors out repairing potholes in Tauranga

Tauranga City Council's maintenance crews are repairing several potholes today which opened in a number of roads around the city due to the recent bad weather.

Ewa Wolf, the council's transport group communication advisor, said the council's roading maintenance contractor spend yesterday clearing cesspits in areas of the city with a high risk of flooding.

"Today our maintenance crews are filling and repairing potholes on Oropi Rd, Links Ave, Gloucester Rd and Truman Lane," she said.

Wolf said overnight the council also received reports of potholes on Elizabeth St and the Totara St/ Hull Rd intersection and one complaint about a pothole in Oropi Rd.

There are no road closures or sections of roads closed due to flooding but people are urged to take care while driving around the city

There are also reports of huge potholes opening up in Te Puna Station Rd and some other parts of the Western Bay of Plenty district.

Te Puna Station Rd was recently resealed and only reopened on Monday.

It was closed for a long time during the construction of the new cycleway along the river side of the road.

Western Bay of Plenty District Council's roading engineer Stuart Harvey said due to the time of year and the location of the affected stretch of road, it has been permanently shaded during the day.

"This caused high saturation levels before it was resealed. Council's roading contractor WestLink had few alternative options available for this time of the year - the only other option would have been to close the whole road long term until warmer dryer weather comes around in a few months' time.

"WestLink has confirmed that they will start work on remediation as soon as the current wet weather event clears and some dry ground conditions prevail," Harvey said.

"At this stage, it looks like remediation work could start over the weekend or early next week with sealing near the end of next week, but is weather depending," he said.

Due to a major slip and flooding the State Highway 2 Waimana Gorge is closed until further notice according to the NZ Transport Agency's website.

The detour route is along Wainui Rd.

SH2 near Taneatua between Rewatu and Taneatua Rds is also closed due to severe flooding of the Whakatane River.