Porangahau and Wimbledon Road Upgrade

The Porangahau and Wimbledon roads in Central Hawke's Bay have been troublesome for many years. Plagued with floods, landslides, closed roads, driver delays and lack of funding, the route's reliability and resilience were jeopardizing the regional economy's prospects to thrive.

Central Hawke's Bay District Council had the opportunity to fix the route with the assistance of $20.1m funding from central government's Provincial Growth Fund; the Council quickly identified the need for support and expertise in delivering the program and called us. Our team led the program's development and management from inception, were integral in the funding application, planned all activities, led design, and managed the construction elements.

The program presented complexities in developing and confirming bridge upgrade options, assessing safety risk to the route, understanding geological vulnerabilities of the pavement, and analyzing flood risk to known hot spots, managed all inside a finite budget with extremely tight timeframes. We also helped the Council reach targets such as social procurement outcomes which provided jobs to locals.

Our collaboration with local iwi (tribe) Ngāti Kere and Ngāti Kere Hapū Authority throughout ensured iwi views were fed into the overall program—iwi and the Authority prepared a cultural impact assessment report with recommendations, in particular for a silt removal project in Tāureakaitai Stream and around Flaxmill Bridge.

We're working with the Council as one entity to provide future generations with safe and durable roading infrastructure along a key thoroughfare in the district.