A century-old bridge south of Whakatāne has been dropped as an urgent replacement project – despite having a road surface so bad it is accused of chewing up brand new tyres.

Exposed screws and broken seal over a wooden plank surface have become a regular feature of Pekatahi Bridge, which links heavy traffic from East Coast industry with the Port of Tauranga.

Local politicians are pushing for the replacement of the one-lane bridge, which has become a cause of complaint from road users who are fed up with damage to their vehicles and frequent closures for maintenance.

New Zealand Transport Agency – Waka Kotahi previously scheduled it for replacement within the next 10 years.

But the agency now says, due to health of the bridge’s sub-structure, and a detour that adds only 20 minutes, it is no longer on their end-of-life bridge register.

Instead, design work is under way for a full deck replacement for the bridge but even this improvement, expected to cost 12% of a full bridge replacement, is subject to funding not available in the next two years.

Mayor Victor Luca addressed the issue at a meeting of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council’s regional transport committee last week as part of a presentation on his proposal for a second river crossing for Whakatāne.

He said he had understood from conversations with former Waka Kotahi regional relationship manager David Spiers last year that the bridge had been on a schedule for replacement. This had since changed.

The committee agreed to write a letter of support to the Minister of Transport for Dr Luca’s second bridge proposal.

Ōpōtiki Mayor David Moore also spoke in support of a new river crossing.

“Anything that goes over your bridge has often come from our district, and a lot of what comes through our district has come from Gisborne on the way over to the port [in Tauranga] ... you suddenly take that all out and you’ve got a problem for the port and for this country. It’s not just our two districts. It affects everyone.

The agency’s maintenance and operations regional manager, Roger Brady, said bridge replacements were prioritised according to the age and condition of the bridge and suitability for current traffic volumes and Pekatahi did not rate as highly as other similar bridges across New Zealand.

Despite three-and-a-half days of closures just before Easter for regular maintenance, the current surface is still bumpy and uneven.

The agency’s Bay of Plenty system manager, Sandra King, said the closure was to remove and replace broken surface planks along the length of the bridge’s deck.

“Crews repaired all significant surface plank breakages and made safe any protruding screws. Due to time restrictions and poor weather, re-surfacing of patches had to be deferred and the repair of planks was prioritised,” she said.

The current state of the seal on Pekatahi Bridge, which is expected to be resealed next week. Photo / Diane McCarthy

A further one-day closure was planned for May 19 to address any further broken or protruding screws and, depending on weather and temperatures, undertake chipseal surface patching.

She said the bridge deck consisted of surfacing planks screwed into transverse beams, overlain by chipseal to help reduce friction. Ongoing maintenance work was needed for repairs and required full road closures. A concrete surface was out of the question as it would be too heavy.

The next full closure was scheduled for the next school holiday period, or earlier, depending on bridge surface condition.

Whakatāne district councillor Nandor Tanczos said the district needed to be working together with other affected districts, businesses, landowners and other stakeholders to lobby Waka Kotahi for a replacement bridge.

“We need some way of pulling all the interested parties together and creating one unified voice,” he said.

He described the state of the bridge’s surface as “horrendous”.

“I’ve heard of people getting their brand new tyres chewed up by the studs that are coming out of the surface. It’s really frustrating. It’s dangerous.

“This Government has sucked all of the money for regional roads and it’s all being funneled into dealing with city congestion. That’s left things like dealing with the Pekatahi Bridge high and dry. They’re basically saying ‘Whakatāne, suck it up’.”

He felt those calling for a second river crossing for the Whakatāne township should also join their voices to the cause.

“It needs two lanes, it needs a proper surface, for freight trucks as well as local traffic. It needs to be resilient for flooding, which we know is increasing because of climate change.

The 100-year-old, one-lane, Pekatahi Bridge near Taneatua is the main route for freight between the East Coast and Tauranga and Rotorua.

“Exactly where it goes, that can be decided. I understand that the cost of replacing Pekatahi is really high because it’s got such a long span. There may be better places to cross, but we need to have that crossing out of town because we want heavy traffic to be bypassing town.

“Collectively, we can be quite a strong voice. We need some ability to pull a coalition together and using the connections that we collectively have in Wellington.”

East Coast MP Dana Kirkpatrick said the bridge was a critical piece of the roading infrastructure and many people had contacted her recently and sent photos showing the state of the road surface.

“I have had reports of trucking companies with repeated damage to tyres at $1200 each time.”

She said in the past 10 years Waka Kotahi had spent $4.6 million on repairs and maintenance to the bridge.

“The lion’s share of that in 2017-2018 when $3.6m was spent removing the train tracks and altering the surface.

“I think it is time the community has the conversation about what the roading priority should be.”

- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.