Agency's $600k to fix torn-up road

SMASHED: Huge waves damaged Cape Palliser Rd during the past few months. PHOTO/FILE

A request for more than $600,000 of emergency funding to fix the damage on Cape Palliser Rd has been approved by the New Zealand Transport Agency.

The South Wairarapa District Council approached the agency after severe weather and high seas in the last few months destroyed sections of the road. In two sections, an entire lane was washed away.

Infrastructure and services manager Mark Allingham said the council had secured 100 per cent funding from the agency to maintain the road for the next three years.

How the road would be maintained after that was yet to be determined.

The funding would transition back to 52 per cent after three years and that would not be enough to maintain a road prone to regular damage, said Mr Allingham.

Roading manager Tim Langley said six stretches of road needed repairs but reinstating the sections which had lost the lane, both of them near the Department of Conservation station, were a priority.

Work on those sections had already begun and it involved reinforcing the road's sub-base with heavy-duty filter fabric and cement stabilised aggregate.

Mr Langley expected that particular chunk of the roadworks to be completed by early next month and the aim was to have all parts of the road fully reinstated by October.

"But that will be subject to weather, with no more major events to hold us backwards."

Because of the threat future coastal erosion posed, more resilient works had been suggested for the road and the council would look at finding the funding, Mr Langley said.

"We can't fund it all at once so it's got to be a staged process and we're working within the current resource consent."