State Highway 2 protest crosses torn down in Tauranga

The giant crosses have been pushed over. Photo/Andrew Warner

A forest of crosses erected by a State Highway 2 protest group has been vandalised.

The cluster of about 20 giant white crosses and signs was erected overlooking the highway on Quarry Rd, Te Puna, by the then-fledgling Fix the Bloody Road campaign in March.

They were inspired by a cross that campaign supporter Jean-Pierre Joubert made to put outside of his business, Parklands Produce, as a message to roading officials to upgrade the unforgiving highway.

Joubert said that when he drove by this morningthe crosses were not visible on the hill as usual.

"It looked like all the crosses and signs had been knocked over."

He was planning to go back after work and see what needed to be done to fix them up.

Campaign spokesman Andrew Hollis said he did not believe anything "malicious" had happened.

"It's probably just kids.

"I don't think Phil Twyford came over one night and knocked them over in a fit of rage," he joked.

The campaign has since held a series of public protests, including a hikoi that blocked the highway at the Wairoa Bridge, in an attempt to influence the NZ Transport Agency and Government into speeding up decisions on the future of a series of projects related to State Highway 2 that were being re-evaluated, including the Tauranga Northern Link.

At the end of September, the agency said it expected to complete the re-evaluations in less than four months.