State Highway 25A puts Coromandel businesses on edge

Author: NZ Herald,
Publish Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2023, 2:54PM

The Coromandel peninsula may lose another summer’s trade by the time State Highway 25A is fixed, a small business owner says.

The highway is one of the main tourist routes for holidaymakers heading to the Thames-Coromandel region, but it was closed in January after the formation of deep cracks, slips and flooding damage from ex-Cyclone Hale.

After multiple severe weather events in the past weeks, the road became unusable, worrying residents and smalls businesses about the future of the area.

Carole Williams and her husband have owned Pauanui Pines Motor Lodge since 2019.

“Summer season was chaotic, we just had so many visitors. We had bus tours and locals coming down to stay,” Williams said.

“It was super, super busy.”

The massive landslide that sliced through State Highway 25A, which remains closed. Photo / RNZ

But business had been a struggle since Covid-19 hit, she said.

“After Covid, we worked through some plans just to try to get some people in here. It’s been a long road trying to get business up and running again.”

Once the border re-opened, Williams was excited to see new summer bookings come through, but that changed when the recent storms and flooding caused even more critical damage to SH25A.

“With the road closures ... and having no power for nearly four days, we are getting a lot of cancellations because people are too wary about travelling here and scared [about] getting stuck in here,” she said.

“So financially, it’s hitting us again.”

Murray Bain, from Kopu-based Coastal Bins, spent a lot of his time in his depot, trying to keep track of the trucks and monitoring how they were going to get them home.

“From what you see when you go around, the crews [have] done a good job and opened up the road and they’ve cleared the road to get the traffic through.”

But he believed faster repairs and maintenance were needed to prevent any more disasters from further rain.

“When you look at the banks, there are still a lot of debris, obviously they haven’t had time to get through it yet, but more rain is going to bring more stuff down and the roads are pretty vulnerable.”

Even though geotechnical assessments are under way on State Highway 25A, the road might not be open in time for next summer.

The Thames Business Association (TBA) said some of its members were down 30 percent on revenue compared to the same period last year due to the lack of tourists.

Slips at the summit of State Highway 25a SH25a Kopu to Hikuai Road which was washed away in recent heavy rains. Photo / Scott Simpson

TBA chief executive Sue Lewis-O’Halloran said after three tough years, businesses were in danger of being overwhelmed.

“We are known as a very resilient business community; however, I think everybody has reached that tipping point because we had five weather events since November 2022,” Lewis-O’Halloran said.

“I’m hopeful that [there] will be some financial support to help those business that are basically hanging by their fingernails.”

Many businesses were struggling to keep their doors open, Lewis-O’Halloran said.

“We need to know what the timelines are [for reopening the road], so our businesses can be as resilient and productive as possible through that time and hopefully survive through the difficult months ahead.”

Waka Kotahi said getting geotechnicians to assess the damage would be weather dependent, and it might take weeks due to the risk of more slips in the area.

Infrastructure delivery regional manager Jo Wilton said there were three main options for reinstating SH25A.

“One - we build a bridge replacing the lost section of road; two - we build a deviation which bypasses the slip site; three - we build a retaining wall and effectively rebuild the road from the ground up.”

It was too early to say if the highway would be fully open next summer, Wilton said.

“We don’t know which option is most feasible yet,” she said, “the right solution cannot be established until the geotech work is complete.”

The next step for road crews was to construct a temporary track to allow access for a geotech drilling rig up to the site of a potential deviation above the slip area, Wilton said.

An aerial view of State Highway 25a / SH25a that was washed out near the summit. Photo / Philip Hart

‘‘We also need to form another access track to the base of the slip, where a retaining wall could be founded, but the ground is too wet to do this yet. Until we can get a rig in, we can’t get significant testing done.”

Meanwhile, for Williams, fixing the road meant getting her life back together.

“I hope that our business stays open, because every little bit of rain now, and I just tend to get really, really anxious,” Williams said.

“I think they should be starting now on getting that [the road access] sorted for us, because I’m tired and exhausted just from trying to cope.”