Friday 19 March 2021

Summary of community information events for Whangārei to Port Marsden Highway and next steps

February rounded out a busy month of engagement for the Whangārei to Port Marsden Highway programme. We’d like to thank those who came to our drop-in sessions to view the emerging preferred corridor and have a chat with the project team. We enjoyed the opportunity to meet Whangārei locals and share information about the project.

If you didn’t catch us this time, you can find the information we presented on our website and you can still share your feedback on our interactive digital mapping tool, Social Pinpoint.

In the coming months, we will be carrying out technical assessments and ground investigations as well as design consultations to enable us to confirm the preferred corridor later this year.

Approximately 250 people came along to our community drop-in sessions last month.

Community engagement on the emerging preferred corridor

About 250 people came along to our two community information events at Mata Hall and the Town Basin Hub Information Centre last month.

We had also planned to have information available at the Northland Field Days, but this event was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions.

These sessions provided an opportunity to meet residents, road users and business owners and to gather feedback on the emerging preferred corridor.

In addition to the verbal feedback gathered during the events, 30 people completed the feedback form available at our events and 20 comments have so far been left on our Social Pinpoint page.

We will continue to receive your feedback over the coming months and have identified some emerging themes so far:

• Landowners want certainty on property impacts and want to know the timeline (if their property is affected)
  
  We acknowledge that potential property impacts and uncertainty can create high levels of stress for landowners and communities. We are working to confirm the preferred corridor as quickly as possible and expect to communicate with landowners by late-2021 with more certainty on individual property impacts.
   
• Locals want to know what’s happening with the Loop Road project, and how it will interact with the four-laning
  
  The roundabout at Loop Road is designed to connect with the upgraded four-lane highway. What the design team is currently looking at is the crossing location over Otaika Stream to ensure that the bridge structure planned for Loop Road works together with what will be needed for four-laning.
   
• Specific questions regarding intersection design and state highway access
  
  We’re aware locals have many questions about vehicle access to SH1 with an upgraded four-lane highway.
  
  The addition of a centre median barrier will deliver significant safety improvements, but it will mean access to properties, businesses and local roads along the corridor will change.
  
  Our designers are working on how local roads and driveways will interact with the upgraded state highway. There are a few areas where there are multiple options and we will be hosting targeted consultation with residents in those areas in the coming months.

Upcoming design consultations

During May and June, we plan to host a series of targeted consultations involving specific sections within the corridor where we have multiple design options.

Locals know their roads best, so we’ll be inviting residents and businesses in the relevant areas to meet with us, assess the options presented and share their feedback directly with our design team.

More information on these sessions will be available in early-May.

What happens next?

The next steps for this project are to carry out further technical assessments and ground investigations to help us confirm the preferred corridor.

By late-2021, we plan to contact landowners within the preferred corridor to confirm whether their property is directly affected and to discuss individual property impacts in greater detail.

We are planning to lodge the Notice(s) of Requirement and resource consent applications in early-2022, followed by procurement for construction and detailed design.

Construction is programmed to begin in late-2023/early-2024.

More information

For more information on the SH1 Whangārei to Port Marsden Highway project, contact us at W2PMH@nzta.govt.nz

Visit our website www.nzta.govt.nz/w2pmh