Culvert installation planned for SH3 Awakino Gorge – Postponed

The closure had been planned from 6am Saturday 22 August to 6pm Tuesday 25 August, so road workers could install culverts at the major slip site and complete asphalting before reopening the road.

However, rain is forecast for the weekend. This means the work cannot be completed successfully within the planned closure window.

This work requires fine weather. To install the culverts, road workers need to excavate the road, install the drainage structures, reinstate the road surface and complete asphalting before the road can safely reopen. The culvert installation and asphalting cannot be completed in wet weather.

The closure will now be rescheduled for 6am Saturday 29 August to 6pm Tuesday 1 September, subject to weather.

If the weather means the work cannot go ahead next weekend, the closure will be postponed again to the following weekend, from 6am Thursday 3 September to 6pm Sunday 6 September.

Because of the scale of the closure and the number of people affected, we need to make the decision now based on the forecast. This gives road users, freight operators, emergency services, local communities, businesses and contractors as much notice as possible to plan around the change.

Even if conditions improve over the weekend, the closure will not be able to go ahead at short notice. This work requires careful planning and mobilisation of road workers, specialist contractors, machinery, materials and traffic management, which cannot be restarted at the last minute.

We will continue to monitor the forecast and site conditions and will provide another update next week confirming whether the closure will go ahead from Saturday 29 August, or whether it needs to be postponed again.