Hawke's Bay community signs petition to have cyclone-damaged bridge fixed

A small central Hawke's Bay community is still taking the long way round more than three years after Cyclone Gabrielle damaged their bridge, and their patience is wearing thin.

Flood damage means Burnside Bridge on a local road near the rural settlement of Takapau is unusable at the moment.

Some residents have to take a five kilometre detour to get to town or drive through the river, and school buses are being re-routed along a main highway.

Hundreds of locals have signed a petition calling for the bridge to be repaired or replaced.

It was presented to the Central Hawke's Bay District Council on Thursday morning, with farmer Dave Ellison making the case for action.

Ellison told Checkpoint the bridge is a lifeline for the community.

"It services a wide area and if there's an accident on the Highway 50 and it's closed, then there's no access to Takapau or it's a 30-minute detour, one-way extra to get into the village of Takapau."

He said the community had also recently expanded its healthcare centre, and it was important that everyone was able to access that in all situations.

Without use of the bridge, locals have to travel the long way to get to the clinic.

Some people had resorted to driving through the river to travel the shortest route, which Ellison said was "pretty hair raising" at times.

He said the main concern was safety, and without the bridge, the alternative of using the highway worried him.

"Our biggest concern is the primary school bus having to turn onto a busy main highway with a very poor visibility, my grandchild is on that bus and two more coming very shortly, so it's very important that their safety is paramount.

"We've got an amazing community and we want to look after everybody in it."

Ellison while the school bus was a massive concern for him, there were many uses of the bridge that the community was missing out on.

"We have a lot of contractors that use the bridge in the busy peak season of doing contract, they harvest and big trucks, tractors that are going slow on the highway, holding up traffic. It's a really huge problem for a tractor going 50km.

"There's a lot of elderly people have moved to Takapau that enjoy e-biking and going for a ride over the bridge."

After waiting more than three years for a fix, Ellison said the community was now working through the logistics of how much it would cost to fix or repair the bridge.

He said a local engineering company had quoted them around $1 million to fix the bridge, or around $4m to replace it completely.

Transport authorities had quoted $16m for a replacement two lane state highway bridge, but Ellison said the community didn't need something of that scale.

"We need to put a bridge in that's fit for purpose, it doesn't have to be a state highway bridge on a quiet country road."

"These bridges are still up to the NZTA standard, they're just not up to the NZTA highway standard and there's no reason why that wouldn't work."

Ellison said he worried that limited access to the community would eventually have a flow on effect, to things like jobs and school attendance.

Central Hawke's Bay District Council group manager of infrastructure and assets Mark Kinvig said the investigation into options for Burnside Bridge remains open.

"We continue to advocate on behalf of the Takapau community with NZTA, who are the key funding partner and decision-maker on all viable options for the future of the bridge."

NZTA director of regional relationships Linda Stewart told Checkpoint the bridge is a council-owned asset and the council would lead all community engagement.

"NZTA is in regular communication with the council and understands it has engaged with the community about the future of Burnside Bridge."

Stewart said NZTA will continue to work with the council as it explores other options and reaches a decision on its asset.