Kaitāia Airport bridge work delayed

Work is progressing on replacing the Quarry Rd Bridge, which leads to Kaitāia Airport. The work should be completed by the end of July.

The completion of bridge work near Kaitāia that has irked some locals due to the detour needed has been delayed several weeks.

The bridge on Quarry Rd, leading to Kaitāia Airport, is getting a $1.3 million upgrade from Northland Regional Council.

The road was meant to close for 10 weeks, with a July 8 completion date.

However, NRC rivers and natural hazards manager Joe Camuso said the project was delayed until the end of July.

The Quarry Rd bridge, in Kaitāia, in February before work on a $1.3m upgrade project began.

The detour in place is along Donald Rd. Motorists travelling to the airport will need to travel through Kaitāia and follow the route.

It is about the same distance from Kaitāia to the airport and includes 3km of gravel road on Quarry Rd, but the detour and delays have upset some locals.

Camuso said February was the original proposed start date for the bridge project. However, this was delayed for various reasons including upgrading the detour road to better handle more traffic and to carry out dust suppression.

‘‘We also kept one lane of the bridge open for an extra week at the start of the project at the community’s request rather than closing the entire thing.

“These factors collectively meant the new start date was effectively March 13,’’ he said.

‘‘Since then, we have had rain delays of approximately two weeks with the site very exposed because we are working in a river that is subject to rain and flooding.

“There were an additional two days of high wind delays while working with a crane.

“There was also a geotech delay of another several days because (we) needed to drill deeper than test drilling had originally indicated.”

Camuso said the contractor is working long hours and weekends and fabricating some steel work in the shop and transporting to site to save time.

There is no additional cost to the council as the project is a fixed price contract, he said.

Funding for the upgrade - which is part of the regional council’s wider multi-million dollar Awanui Flood Scheme improvements - comes from the Government’s Regional Infrastructure Fund for consented priority flood resilience projects that will protect land and assets during severe weather.

Altogether $660,000 comes from the fund, and $440,000 from the regional council.

The work will fix a ‘pinch point’ in the flood scheme and will take place in two phases.

The first section of the work will allow for earthworks underneath a proposed 15m extension of the bridge - which will open an additional 12m span - and support the wider Awanui scheme.

The extra span on the bridge will reduce the risk of flooding to surrounding houses and the Awanui township. A second section of work will involve construction of the bridge extension.

Removing the flood ‘pinch point’ should help prevent the town and nearby area from flooding in extreme weather events.