A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
Last year the head of GDC Community Lifelines David Wilson and two councillors involved in roading, including Graeme Thomson, agreed that the best route for logging trucks to reach Awapuni Road/State Highway 35 was via Bushmere Road.
The original idea was to use King Road so it was upgraded and
also with an expensive new bridge to handle the logging trucks. The main problem using this route was it passes Makauri School and once on Matawai Road, there was no suitable turn off to Bushmere Road to bypass Makaraka and the school there.
The same goes for Harper Road, which the council has put forward as the most suitable solution to cross from Waimata Valley Road to Matawai Road/SH2. The trucks still have to go through Makaraka while taking this route. They also must travel over a single-lane bridge which is raised and has a very bad blind spot. Our family alone have been involved in several close calls at that bridge due to it being blind. Additionally, all of Harper Road requires a major upgrade and a new bridge as it is not suitable to be supporting this many logging trucks.
Using the original main road idea involved an extra 3km and Bushmere becoming the State Highway. At Bushmere Arms, the original State Highway to Makaraka would have a “give way” on to the junction with Bushmere.
There are only two short sections of Bushmere Road that need an upgrade to the State Highway standard. Some forestry interests thought the 3km extra was justified once they started using the Hokoroa Road which is mainly downhill and joins on to the upper Waimata.
