Community gathers for Kaitāia clean-up before Mangamuka reopening

Kaitāia Business Association chairman Josh Kirby and Lennox Goodhue-Wikitera are gearing up for the town’s big clean-up this week and are urging other business owners and community members to get involved.

Kaitāia is getting a big spring clean this week for the reopening on the Mangamukas, and business leaders are urging the community to get behind the efforts.

The Far Far North is getting an early Christmas present with the long-awaited reopening of State Highway One over Mangamuka Gorge locked in for December 20.

The road has been closed twice in recent years. The 13km stretch of highway was wiped out by a series of 15 slips in a major storm in August 2022, just over a year after the highway reopened following a 12-month closure. Repair work had been under way for less than six months when a storm in April last year resulted in a further 20 slips – some of them massive – that covered 1.3km and required repairs.

Then heavy rain on June 19 and 20 threatened to further delay the opening with a massive slip falling down the hill. The two-year job to fully fix SH1 over the gorge has been so extensive and complex that an extra $60 million to finish it was allocated in May’s Budget. That took the total cost to $160m.

Kaitāia Business Association (KBA) is calling on all businesses, organisations and community groups in and around the town centre to grab a broom, a hose and a rubbish sack and help tidy up the town centre ready for the reopening of the Mangamuka Gorge, at the Kaitāia Town Square from 10am on November 15, with clean-up efforts going on throughout the week leading up to Friday’s big clean-up.

KBA chairman Josh Kirby said it had been a long time coming, but with the road finally reopening, it was time to show off Kaitāia to the rest of the world, but the CBD needed a bit of a spring clean first to welcome all the visitors expected over the busy Christmas-New Year period.

Kirby said the Mangamuka closure and that of the Brynderwyns south of Whangārei had hit Te Hiku businesses hard, with the closures stopping many people from heading north and taking away much-needed income.

It had also had a big impact on residents who faced a big detour to get around the Mangamuka closure.

“We’ve all been looking forward to this [Mangamuka reopening] and I personally can’t wait,” he said.

To prepare for the reopening, plans are well under way for a spring clean across the town centre this week, culminating on Friday with many volunteer groups keen to get stuck in and support.

“We’re incredibly grateful to all those community groups volunteering to help,” Kirby said.

“We’re also very grateful to those businesses who have offered to support the spring-clean event and ensure that all bases are covered. Between them all, we’ve managed to ensure that the parks and reserves will be mowed, weeds will be cleared, our gardens will be tidied up, Commerce St and our alleyways will be water-blasted, graffiti will be cleaned off and painted over, and all the rubbish that we collect will be sorted, recycled and cleared away.”

He said the reopening meant a great deal to “our little town” and would lead to more visitors this summer, and it was important to show the area was open for business and looking smart.

“Hopefully, this will help our businesses and community recover. Our businesses have had a tough time since the Mangamuka route was closed and it was one thing after another after Covid, cyclones and the Brynderwyns closure.’’

Lennox Goodhue-Wikitera owns a stall in Bali Boutique in Commerce St and is right behind the clean-up operation and wants everybody to get involved.

“We want Kaitāia to be looking fresh and inviting for when the extra visitors come north this summer,” Goodhue-Wikitera said.

“It’s about having some pride in our town. When you go to Kerikeri it always looks nice and tidy and we want to have the same pride in Kaitāia.”