Waitara Town Bridge will be closed to traffic and pedestrians on Wednesday, July 21, from 9.30am to 11am while a new flood barrier is tested.
The removable barrier will be deployed at the town end of the bridge if extreme rainfall ever results in the Waitara River threatening to rise above the bridge deck. It's the final part of a multi-year upgrade of the Lower Waitara River Flood Control Scheme by the Taranaki Regional Council.
"Closing the bridge will inconvenience some residents, and we regret that," says the council's river manager, Ruan Smal.
"But it will be a relatively minor inconvenience compared with the damage and destruction that a major flood would cause in the CBD. Long-term residents might remember the reality of that in the 1960s and 1970s."
Traffic will be directed to use the SH3 bridge while the town bridge is closed.