Road closure for State Highway 6 for emergency repairs

Closure from 1 November to 18 December 2022

15 December 2022

Final days of SH6 emergency repairs

We are still on track to fully reopen SH6 to all vehicles from 10pm on Sunday 18 December.

We are very conscious of the weather and monitoring the rain forecast, which may impact asphalt and line marking as we complete the resurfacing work.

If the rain interferes with our programme, we will still re-open the road on Sunday from 10pm, but in that event you may see some minor temporary traffic management in place until we complete the road surfacing and marking.  We are pulling out all the stops to minimise this occurring. 

We will update everyone on Saturday 17 December to let you know what work is remaining. Any work that is remaining will be done under traffic management  with the road remaining open.

In the new year, we expect to complete minor finishing works and two reseal sites. This will require shoulder closures and isolated short one-way sections controlled by traffic lights or manual stop/go. The total time needed to do this work is expected to be several days. We are combining this work with general maintenance activities to minimise disruption.

It's been a huge week for the team, with final concrete pours to Sites One, Two and Three  to complete the walls. Now that the walls are complete, backfilling is well underway. Once backfilling is done, the sites will be ready for laying asphalt, reinstalling the guardrails and completing the surface drainage. The final step is road marking. 

Site Four continues to be the most challenging site. There is still work to do before the asphalt can go down. This week the team are completing the structural concrete at the tie in. After this is completed, the team will complete the backfilling and welding on the walers on the front face of the retaining wall. The aim is to have asphalt placed on Saturday, immediately followed by guardrail and roadmarking in time for opening. 

Two smaller sites, Sites Five and Six have had all rockwork complete and the team are finishing the small walls, guard rail and backfill this week.

The overslip site near the well-known Christmas tree is going well with excavation completed and minor cleaning work to do. The team are installing water-filled barriers to protect the road from any stones or vegetation from the fresh cut slope.

The Whangamoa river realignment is on track, culverts have been installed and the team have installed the membrane seal. The next step is structural paving, which will require 1,400 tonnes of asphalt.

Images of the work sites

Below are the images of each of the work sites, from Site One to Site Four and the Whangamoa river realignment.

Please note, the photos do not show all the crew and machinery that are actively using the site. 

Road to open from 10pm on Sunday 18 December

On Sunday 18 December the road will reopen to all vehicles from 10pm. We will have two lanes re-established.

We currently have no planned longer periods of full road closure for 2023.

In Autumn 2023, there will be short overnight road closures to enable crews to clear drainage as we have done in previous years as part of our annual maintenance schedule.

To minimise disruption to people on the road, we've been holding off doing road repairs to other parts of the State Highway network south of Nelson on SH6 and on SH63 whist the section between Hira and Rai Valley has been closed. With SH6 between Hira and Rai re-opening, we will now undertake urgent repairs on the worst spots on SH6 and SH63 prior to the Christmas break. We will be making sure to minimise delays for everyone. Please plan your journeys and you will notice some short stop/go areas on these roads.

Plan your trip with travel time information, traffic cameras, and updates on delays, roadworks and road closures, visit www.journeys.nzta.govt.nz.

Support

Nelson City Council have also set up a single point of contact with ‘recovery navigator’ roles. You can contact the Nelson City Council’s recovery navigators on 03 546 0200 or email navigator@ncc.govt.nz

Marlborough District Council has a similar recovery navigator role, and you can contact them at recovery@marlborough.govt.nz