SH1 Mangamuka Gorge highway to the North fixed and open

KEY POINTS:

• State Highway 1’s Mangamuka Gorge has reopened, reconnecting the Far North after years of disruption.
• Local employment surged, with 150 workers on site daily, half from the Far North.
• The project boosted local economy and skills, but future work for the workforce remains uncertain.

State Highway 1 is once again whole with the opening of the Mangamuka Gorge today, connecting the Far North directly to the rest of the country.

It has been years of people separated from medical treatment, paying hiked prices for goods trucked north, of whānau stretched and separated, of jobs being strained or just lost.

But it has also seen NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) build an incredible relationship with local iwi in an area burdened by joblessness, employing mostly locals.

It was the Far North’s day so rather fitting that its mayor, Moko Tepania, should phrase it best.

As he stepped forward to speak at the opening ceremony, he said: “I’ve just thought of a really good analogy – is that the word? You know when you hurt your back ... your whole body doesn’t function. You can use your arms still, you can use your mouth, you can use your legs, but none of it works properly.

“The Mangamuka Gorge is the backbone of the Far North. So having this taken out, yes we’ve still been able to use our hands, still being able to use our legs, definitely been able to use our mouths, but our district has not functioned.”

In total, 13km of highway was closed to repair more than 30 slips using 10,000cu m of concrete, and 1337 piles driven an average of 23m into the ground, stitching the hillside together. Photo / NZTA

The mammoth project is still a few months from completion but will open one minute after midnight tonight to allow traffic to flow once again.

The gorge was hit in 2020 by heavy rain, and slips forced closure for a year.

There was a 13-month period of grace before heavy winter weather again brought down the hillside and washed away significant sections of the road.

That was August 2022. In the time since, Kaitāia’s outlying villages and towns to the south faced long treks on smaller, winding, roads to reach the only supermarket north of Kerikeri.

It was a burden marked by Transport Minister Simeon Brown when he spoke at the opening.

“An extra 45 minutes in journey times to go through State Highway 10 is a big disruption to your day, particularly to the freight operators who rely on this connectivity.”

Brown said the amount of funding going into Northland roading was the highest it had ever been. He later said work would begin on the Northern Expressway in this term in Government, before the end of 2026.

“Because ultimately to unlock economic growth and productivity in the North, we need roads, we need reliable infrastructure.”

Both Brown and Tepania pledged to make the most of the local workforce that had been developed. Each day, there were, on average, 150 workers on site. Of those, half were from the Far North and 68% were from Northland.

The local employment is a staggering achievement given the high rates of joblessness in the North.

Early risers took part in ceremonies to bless the pou erected at either end of the gorge works.

For the Far North, peak unemployment in the past decade sat at 10.7% in 2016. It is 7.2% as of September. Northland fares marginally better at 5.3%. Both areas are significantly higher than the national average of 4.4%.

The Far North is filled with stories of those who moved away for work – and those who couldn’t move and so stayed, piecing together a living where they could.

SH10 ‘hammered’

Brown said State Highway 10 – the diversion route – had been “hammered” and the local workforce would find more work there and on other improvements in the region.

Grant McCallum, Northland MP, said: “Once this was done, the focus will go on State Highway 10 to bring it up to speed. As you can see driving up and down, the road is b***ered.”

Tepania, too, said some of those who worked the Mangamuka Gorge job were already repairing some of the 39 slips on district roads still outstanding from Cyclone Gabrielle.

Those included a notorious slip on the road to remote Panguru in north Hokianga.

Activating that workforce took more than job ads. It took whānau. Tomo Otene, who is from Mangamuka, had now found a job where he could move back home after so many decades elsewhere working huge infrastructure projects.

Otene came on as site supervisor in late 2022 and, in search of workers, looked to his own family and community before going marae-to-marae, door-to-door, looking for those who wanted to rebuild the highway.

“In the beginning, in the early days, I was going house to house because I knew everyone there.”

There were those he knew or to whom he was related, such as Victor Harris, 57 of Mangamuka, a sixth-generation forestry-turned-conservation worker.

Victor Harris and Tomo Otene at the Mangamuka site. Photo / David Fisher

And there were those he was meeting for the first time, pitching up to talk about jobs nobody had to leave the Far North for – they were just five minutes down the broken road from home.

“We’ve had families working on this, husbands and wives, daughters and fathers. With this project, there were so many of us and it was right on our back doorstep. And everything we spent our money on went into the community as well.”

They also talk of becoming a tight-knit workforce, proud of the work they are doing while connected to the significance of the landscape in which the work is being done.

Harris started work in March 2023 and found, in a way, being responsible for health and safety wasn’t hugely different to the ministry he provides through Church of the Latter Day Saints.

He calls the boost in local employment “Tomo’s vision, our vision”: “If there’s work coming into the place, let’s get ourselves sorted and apply ourselves to the work.”

Harris is open about his nervousness. “I’d had nothing to do with civil construction. You’re afraid of what you don’t know.”

Health and safety, he reckoned, was computers and paperwork – a long way from expertise with heavy machinery and forestry work.

Then Harris realised Otene, in creating a seemingly minor task for him, had actually dropped him into a situation where he had proved his worth to himself but also to those around him.

“I’ve learned so much coming into this place and working this role.”

By close of project, the on-site accident record is enviable: five incidents requiring hospital treatment and two requiring work to stop.

That’s a significant accomplishment for a project that has literally stitched a hillside together with 1337 piles sunk an average of 23m deep, placed 10,000cu m of concrete then laid 5km of asphalt atop the works.

“Everything was health and safety. Every day you learn something new and apply it the next day.”

Otene also has a view on this: “Because you have so many hapū members on site involved in the mahi, you’re not going to let anything happen that’s not right.”

Embracing te ao Māori

Hiring out of a predominantly Māori community required NZTA to shift its vision slightly to accommodate the Far North’s te ao Māori view of the world and the obligations that come with it.

Weekly toolbox sessions were opened with karakia and prayer which quickly became inclusive – Pākehā, Pasifika and Muslim workers sharing the faith and the moment.

Victor Harris at the Mangamuka Gorge works. Photo / David Fisher

Tangi could have cleared the work site.

“Tomo with his wisdom came and sat us down and said, ‘we can’t all go to a tangi’. And so work and life would blend so each thrived.

Harris is filled with praise for NZTA’s leadership accommodating local needs while insisting on high standards across the average 29 companies on site each day.

They always knew the highway would be complete and the work would end. That is now in sight with a soft opening over Christmas and final works to be completed by April next year.

The skill base that has developed will now go wanting, unless the highway workers leave for other places. As near-ruined as the Broadwood road is, as hammered as SH10 is, there is no sign of work planned that the Mangamuka crews could switch to.

“I’ll probably go back to DoC,” said Harris, referring to the Department of Conservation job he had keeping tracks clear.

Others may not be so fortunate.

David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for 35 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.

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