Weekend work closes Napier-Wairoa road again

No thoroughfare....traffic held up in a previous unplanned closure of the Napier-Wairoa road. A planned closure will stop traffic making the trip between 7am and 6pm on Saturday. Photo / NZME

Nationwide highways management agency Waka Kotahi NZTA has confirmed the closure of a section of the Napier-Wairoa road for up to 11 hours on Saturday, without a suitable detour.

It's being done to complete repairs that were unable to be finished by the time bad weather intervened during a widely-criticised daytime closure on the weekend of February 12-13.

While resealing of the Waikari River Bridge and Devil's Elbow was done along with other maintenance, including pothole repairs, contractors were unable to complete the second section of the Devil's Elbow ascent at the time.

The road will be closed from 7am to 6pm for the work between McIntyre's Access Rd and Arapaoanui Rd, near Tutira. While this is a much shorter stretch than the one where works were taking place three weeks earlier there is still no suitable detour.

The NZTA is alerting motorists to plan ahead and schedule travel for outside the closure period.

In the case of poor weather or other unforeseen circumstances, work may need to be postponed, the agency warns, advising people to monitor the Waka Kotahi Journey Planner website (journeys.nzta.govt.nz) or Central North Island social media pages for up to date information.

A highway resident and Hastings District Council ratepayer who works in Napier said NZTA had at no time directly notified those most directly affected.

"When the car rallies come through we have flyers in our letterboxes as well as posts on the local Facebook page giving us plenty of notice," she said. "The only information we could get (this time) was from Facebook."

She said on the night before the February 12-13 closure, contractors arrived in her driveway to erect signs, and they had to ask if the contractors had any information.

"It would have been nice maybe to let residents know this before plans were changed and work shifts arranged," she said. "I am not the only one out here to feel the absolute frustration and arrogance of these people. We are not travellers, we are residents, and this road is our only route to town."