SH1 Tīrau to Waiouru maintenance update

22 September 2025

Taupō to Tūrangi: Work continues at Waitahanui. Lane shifts and temporary speed limits are in place, please follow the traffic management and stick to the speed limits. Night work is planned at Hatepe Hill on Thursday 25 September using stop/go traffic management.  Work is Sunday to Thursday, between the hours 7pm and 6am, so the next shift will be Sunday 28 September, please prepare for some delays. This work is subject to weather.

Tīrau: Overnight road closures continue. State Highway 1 (SH1) is closed south of the Rose Street/Hillcrest Street intersection. Work is between the hours of 7pm and 6am Sunday to Thursday. Traffic is being detoured via State Highway 27 (SH27), Patetere Street, Okoroire Road, Hetherington Road, State Highway 5 (SH5) and back to State Highway 1 (SH1). This adds approx. 6 mins and 10km to your journey.

All of this work is weather dependent.

Tīrau works update

Shout out to the team at Tīrau who worked through some average weather over their nights this week. The kerbies pulled out all the stops to get the new kerb and channel laid and then covered with plastic to protect it from the impending downpour.

The team have continued removing guardrails, removing and replacing the kerb and channel and clearing drainage. This week they will move on to asphalting work between the KiwiRail bridge and roundabout.

The team will be moving to the roundabout and the southern approaches in early October. When this happens, traffic will be detoured from the roundabout on SH1 to SH5, State Highway 28 (SH28) and back to SH1.

The below photos show milling between the KiwiRail overbridge and the SH1/SH5 roundabout ahead of asphalt work starting. There can be some noise and vibrations with this work, as with normal road works on SH1. We aim to keep these impacts to a minimum throughout the work period.

Taupō to Tūrangi - Waitahanui

The team completed the kerb and channel at Waitahanui, cleaned up the catchpits and have been laying subsoil drainage last week. Here’s a few progress photos from the site. Look at those nice tight lines and clean trenches.

Road maintenance might seem like a simple job – but it’s all in the little details. The kerb and channel and subsoil drainage work together to help guide surface and subsurface water away from the road and into the catchpits, culverts and stormwater systems. This works to protect both the road and you the driver.

It stops the water seeping into the road and damaging the base which is where those pesky potholes start. It also reduces the risks of surface water pooling during heavy rain and you aquaplaning as you drive through it. The subsoil drains also work to intercept groundwater, water that comes up from the water table below the road, which can also impact the pavement from below. Engineering is pretty clever stuff.

Hatepe Hill update

Night work is planned at Hatepe Hill on Thursday 25 September using stop/go traffic management.  Work is Sunday to Thursday between the hours 7pm and 6am so the next shift following Thursday will be Sunday 28 September, please prepare for some delays. Temporary speed limits will be in place during the day.  This work is subject to weather.

Road works 101 – how do potholes happen

T2W is all about dealing to potholes on SH1 to make the road safer and minimise disruption to road users in the future.

Potholes are unfortunately an unwanted reality on our state highways and one of the key reasons T2W was launched. New Zealanders want a well maintained and reliable transport network. Between SH29 at Piarere and SH49 at Waiouru 5,670 potholes were repaired between July 2022 and April 2024. That meant a lot of roadworks disrupting traffic.

Water is the number 1 cause of potholes, which is why we’re doing so much work to fix all that drainage. As this video below explains. Potholes are formed when water sitting on the road lubricates and loosens how the rocks and stones hold together. Once they get loosened and move, more water gets into the road and weakens the underlying pavement. As traffic continues to drive over the area the water is then compressed by vehicles driving over it, pushing the water into the surrounding road structure and presto, you have a pothole.

On T2W we are digging out and strengthening areas of SH1 that have shown this loosening to ensure a safer and smoother drive.

Mercury Energy – planned closures of the Whakamaru Dam for maintenance

Heads up. Mercury Energy is planning to close the Whakamaru Dam during the day from Monday 13 October to Friday 17 October between the hours of 8am to 7pm.

This will impact road users wanting to travel on SH32 during this time. Mercury has another closure planned for Monday 17 November to Friday 21 November between the hours of 8am to 7pm. This second closure is likely to coincide with night closures T2W has planned between Tokoroa and Ātiamuri, also happening in November.

While Mercury’s work is a day closure and T2W’s work is a night closure we wanted to give you a heads up so you can plan ahead. We will be sharing exact dates for our Ātiamuri works and the detours ahead of works starting.

T2W won’t be here forever - sign up for our Waikato road maintenance newsletter

We’re changing how we tell you about upcoming roadworks, focusing more on using emails and social media. 

Sign up to receive emails about upcoming maintenance on Waikato state highways.

Emails and social media are now the way most people prefer to hear about maintenance we’re doing, and they’re more cost-effective and efficient – for example, we can easily tell you about late changes to works happening, such as when planned roadworks are affected by the weather. 

Our emails will tell you about work happening on state highways in your region in the week ahead. Our website has a full list of maintenance emails for every region – if you regularly travel across regions, sign up for emails from the regions relevant to you.

In some cases, you'll also get printed letters from us about work happening in your area.

More information

For more information on the SH1 Tīrau to Waiouru maintenance, contact us at SH1Waikato@nzta.govt.nz

Visit our website nzta.govt.nz/t2w