Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency says all options are on the table, but Far North deputy mayor Ann Court says there’s a high chance the Mangamuka Gorge will never re-open.

Following months of speculation and mounting pressure from both the public and officials, Waka Kotahi has finally commenced talks regarding where to from here for the notorious strip of SH1.

Court and the media attended a site tour of the Mangamuka Gorge yesterday to see first-hand the destruction resulting from the last major weather event in August.

A combination of unprecedented rainfall in June and July plus a deluge in August resulted in 15 slips occurring along the SH1 network, closing the Mangamuka Gorge indefinitely.

Yesterday was the first time for Court to visit ground zero, which she admitted was far more devastating in real life than could be understood through images alone.

Based on what she had seen and heard from the geology reports, she doubted re-opening the Mangamuka Gorge would be a long-term, viable solution.

“It’s not until you stand here and get a sense of the sheer scale and the number of slips that you realise just how big a job we have ahead of us,” Court said.

“The future has to be alternate routes because we know this road will fail again and again, no matter how much money we throw at it.

“We need to find a route away from water or steep terrain, which can get people to the Far North in a safe way.

“Because of the geology in this area, if we don’t consider those elements, we could face the same problems we have here at the Mangamuka Gorge.

“There is a high possibility this road could be abandoned altogether – we need to be prepared for that.”

The closure of the Mangamuka Gorge in August came just one year after it re-opened following a major weather event that closed it in 2020.

Repair works for the last closure cost about $13 million, and saw around three to four major slips take away the road.

Since the gorge’s most recent closure, people south of the gorge have again been forced to travel north along SH10, adding two hours to their round trip.

It’s also left the Far North particularly vulnerable to being cut off from the rest of the country should SH10 flood at Kaeo.

Waka Kotahi called a meeting with the Far North District Council (FNDC) and key community stakeholders on Thursday to discuss alternative options for the state highway network.

According to Court, several ideas were raised, including the option of a tunnel.

Due to the soil and movement of the mountain, however, she said that would be an unlikely and extremely expensive option.

Far North District Councillor Felicity Foy and Kaitaia Business Association chairwoman Andrea Panther also attended Thursday’s meeting.

Panther said the workshop was really positive and felt as if Waka Kotahi was listening to the people.

“There were a few options discussed and we unanimously agreed a package deal was the best option,” Panther said.

“From what I understand, Waka Kotahi will now go away to present their business case to the board on November 8, which will then go to Treasury for funding.

“We all agreed that we need to fix SH1, to upgrade SH10 and to upgrade alternative routes such as Broadwood-Herekino Road and Otangaroa Road.”

The issue of how to fund roads has long been a sore point for the Far North, with roads all over the district already at a crisis point before the Mangamuka Gorge closed.

Foy said the Far North shouldn’t become the “forgotten North” and a minimum standard for state highways across all of New Zealand should be in place.

“Waka Kotahi has no money, their spending is reliant on what Treasury gives them to deliver the objectives for roading in New Zealand,” she claimed.

“The current Government policy on spending for roading is more in metropolitan areas, rather than ensuring a minimum level of service for all the state highways throughout the country.

“If the Government wants us to thrive here in Northland and to address the inequities we have in our regions, I plead they stop coming up with band-aid solutions and properly address both the standards and resilience of our northern state highway networks.”

Waka Kotahi confirmed testing and assessment of the Mangamuka Gorge were still underway, with results of the damage due to be available in the next month.

Randhir Karma, the regional system design manager for Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) and Te Tai Tokerau (Northland), said the ground was still moving at the site and the agency was looking at all options for the future.

Karma confirmed that the damage was far worse than that in 2020, but could not say yet whether the road was worth re-opening nor what the potential cost to repair the state highway could be.

“We’ve been doing a number of tests to see how this has occurred and what we have found is there is quite a lot of saturation on the ground,” Karma said.

“The damage includes a combination of large underslips and overslips along SH1 and there is a real risk of losing part of the road.

“We’re now looking at the resilience challenges for the network and what opportunities are available to see what SH1 looks like moving forward.”