Napier-Wairoa road: Tenders set to open for Waikare Gorge highway project

A tender for building a 3.4km State Highway 2 deviation between Napier and Wairoa should be let early next year, paving the way for a project likely to cost over $400 million.

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) senior project manager Chris Mahoney said a tender process for the Waikare Gorge realignment, bypassing Putorino and the gorge, will open this month and close in December.

With land use and resource consents granted last year and property acquisition to be finalised, it will enable a start in 2026.

Confirmation comes as work starts on a second temporary replacement bridge just north of Putorino at the site of the Waikare River bridge, which was destroyed in Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023.

NZTA says funding for the Bailey bridge replacement by New Zealand’s first Acrow bridge, amid the phasing out of the Bailey bridge stock first used in New Zealand in the 1940s, is separate from that of the realignment.

But February’s approval of funding for the major project, estimated by Minister of Transport Chris Bishop to cost possibly as much as $425m, helped finalise “what the replacement would look like”.

It was known that the replacement would need to be in place throughout the realignment, a timeframe for which will be established in the tender and contract process.

The next steps for the realignment are to “develop the blueprint for the entire project”, the NZTA says.

Design, engineering and management consultancies Beca and Stantec have been appointed to lead that work, with a “locally driven approach while tapping into expertise across the country”.

With strong interest, the design and tender process will ultimately be open to two contractors competitively bidding, with the contract being awarded to the one contractor offering the best-value solution.

The NZTA is also partnering with iwi representatives Maungaharuru-Tangitū Trust (MTT) and Ngāti Pāhauwera Development Trust (NPDT) to share environmental, cultural, social, and economic outcomes.

Waikare Bridge, destroyed in Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023 and replaced with a Bailey bridge three months later, is now being replaced by a modern temporary structure but is set to disappear from the highways network in the Waitangi Gorge realignment project over the next four years. Photo / NZTA

The NZTA says mana whenua have been working with the agency since 2017, when, it says, the gorge was identified as a “key pinch point on the journey on State Highway 2”.

MTT chief executive Adele Small said: “It is a significant opportunity to create lasting benefit for our people, while approaching the work with respect for the whenua and a clear sense of responsibility.

“We remain focused on progressing this kaupapa in partnership and with purpose for the future of our takiwā.”

Doug Laing has been reporter for more 52 years, more than 40 of them in Hawke’s Bay, at the Central Hawke’s Bay Press, the Napier Daily Telegraph and Hawke’s Bay Today, since its establishment in 1999. He has covered most aspects of general news and sport, and is based in Napier.