Road closure for State Highway 6 for emergency repairs

Closure from 1 November to 18 December 2022

9 December 2022

SH6 on track to open to all vehicles from 10pm on Sun 18 Dec

We are into the last two weeks of emergency repairs and are on track for opening State Highway 6 on Sunday 18 December. The road will reopen to all vehicles from 10pm.

We are also keeping a careful eye on the weather, and the expected heavier rainfalls over the weekend. We are doing our best to protect the sites and are working around options if the weather does work against us. 

This week we worked across Sites One to Four, the Whangamoa River scour site, and on the overslip site, near the well-known Christmas tree on the Whangamoa saddle. We also started a fifth minor site, which is well underway.

The four main sites have now gone through the ground improvement process, with construction on one wall complete, and the other three on track for completion for Sunday 18 December. We are now turning our focus on backfilling and laying the road surface.

As well as completing the emergency repairs, crews will be working extended hours to get the road resurfacing finished. This will start on Sunday night of week six with over 2,500 tonnes of asphalt required to be laid at the repair sites. In the final week, the crew will start on chip seal renewal, which is maintenance work that has been brought forward to utilise the current road closure. This maintenance work was scheduled for next year and would have required further road closures to complete.

Site One
The crew are placing reinforcing steel so that the last concrete pour and backfilling can be finished mid-week six. Installation of a 1,200mm culvert on the downhill site of the wall was also completed and the 2,000mm manhole will be installed early in week six.

Site Two
The crew have been busily working on getting each layer of the wall closer to the top. The team are aiming to have all the layers completed late in week six, with the 40m long reinforced concrete beam to be placed after.

Site Three
The last concrete pour for Site Three was completed on the weekend. The final tie-ins, culvert works, and backfilling will be completed next week in preparation for asphalting in the final week.

Site Four
For Site Four, the crews worked hard to get the reinforcing steel and timber walers installed. The final concrete pour on the main beams is completed too. The welders will arrive on site in week six and have the mammoth task of welding all the walers onto the columns in the challenging location. This site is likely to be the last site to have the road surfacing completed.

Site Five
A new site was started by the crew and is now well underway. This Site is located at close to Duckpond Road and was started later in the programme as it is a smaller site, which needed less time to complete. Rock armour has been placed to help protect the site against scour and water erosion. Gabions (big cage structures with rock boulders inside them) will be installed next week.

Whangamoa River scour site
The realignment work at the Whangamoa River site continued with increased resource and working hours. The team completed the subgrade improvements and culvert installation works. 

Overslip site
The crew excavated an estimated 12,000m3 of materials at the overslip site this week. The weather has been great through the week, so the crew were able to shift a large portion of the dry material into the adjacent fill site. The crew is now focused on pulling down the last of the material for planned completion late next week. Because the excavation required a very large excavator and dump trucks, seal repairs will be required and are planned for later in the final week.

Images of the work sites

Below are the images of each of the work sites, from Site One to Site Four and an image of the excavation work at the overslip site, which is near the well-known Christmas tree on the Whangamoa saddle.

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

Road on track to open from 10pm

We are on track to open State Highway 6 on Sunday 18 December. The road will reopen to all vehicles from 10pm.

On Sunday 18 December, we are aiming to re-establish two lanes of road for the holiday season. We may need to return to complete minor repairs in 2023, and these may cause short delays under traffic management.

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

Associate Minister and Mayor visit

We had the pleasure of showing the Associate Transport Minister, Hon Kieran McAnaulty and Nelson Mayor, Nick Smith, the progress that is being made.

Hon McAnaulty and Mayor Smith advised media and us that after seeing the pace of the work at the sites they are reassured that it is on track to open at 10pm on Sunday 18 December.

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