{"id":437773,"date":"2026-05-21T04:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T04:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/437773\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T04:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T04:24:10","slug":"nzta-apologises-to-business-for-signs-pointing-people-to-closed-dump-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/437773\/","title":{"rendered":"NZTA apologises to business for signs pointing people to closed dump station"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hall was also told of another sign outside the livestock waste dump station at Matawhero Saleyards telling people not to dump human waste there and directing them to Hall\u2019s Awapuni Rd site and the former Mobil Portside Service Station (now Waitomo Portside) in Wainui Rd.<\/p>\n

But it was the Awapuni Rd sign that was the major issue.<\/p>\n

Hall said a crew of \u201cfive guys in three trucks\u201d turned up on Friday and started to put up the sign.<\/p>\n

The crew were told: \u201cThe dump station is not there. There\u2019s a sign over here that says \u2018dump station closed\u2019<\/a>, it\u2019s been filled in, it\u2019s not here.\u201d<\/p>\n

It fell on deaf ears, according to Hall. One of the workers said it had to go up, so it did.<\/p>\n

After they had left, a bit of Kiwi ingenuity was employed to avoid potential confusion and disruption.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had an old black singlet that was in a rubbish pile and we got up there and covered up the sign,\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n

The Gisborne Herald contacted Gisborne District Council and was told the signs were not its doing.<\/p>\n

The mystery was solved when the Gisborne Herald contacted NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA).<\/p>\n

The signs are on Awapuni Rd, which is part of State Highway 35 for which NZTA is responsible.<\/p>\n

An NZTA spokesman confirmed in an email that the signs had come from the agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese signs (Awapuni Rd and Grey St) were installed by the NZ Transport Agency contractor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, our records didn\u2019t show the site had been disestablished and as the signs were reported as missing, they were replaced.<\/p>\n

\"AA black singlet was used to cover a new sign erroneously pointing to a now-closed motorhome dump station site on Awapuni Rd.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter speaking with the business owner involved, we acknowledge this dump station no longer exists, apologised for any inconvenience caused and instructed our contractor to remove these signs as quickly as possible [on Tuesday].<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re sorry for the error and are working to ensure this doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesman said the cost to establish and remove the signage would be part of NZTA\u2019s allocated maintenance and operations budget for the contractor.<\/p>\n

The Matawhero signage was \u201cnot in the NZTA database and there is no record of any works being undertaken by [the] NZ Transport Agency contractor, these will be removed as soon as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe dump station at Hallrite Plumbing and Gasfitting on Awapuni Rd, Gisborne has been closed since January this year.<\/p>\n

When the Gisborne Herald contacted Hall to tell him the signs were to be removed, he went outside to have a look at the sign across the road, which had previously been hidden by the black singlet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019ve taken them down. The one out on our road straight out from our driveway is gone \u2013 the post and all the rest of it. I\u2019m happy that at least the transport agency themselves, they\u2019ve obviously taken it down or had someone do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hall was also told of another sign outside the livestock waste dump station at Matawhero Saleyards telling people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3041,38860,43507,138,5201,6097,77492,104286,2082,12506,48934,2250,3556,111,139,69,16488,17286,384,46930,5652,213,13655,19554,61,112,25361],"class_list":["post-437773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-agency","tag-apologised","tag-apologises","tag-business","tag-closed","tag-down","tag-dump","tag-erroneously","tag-for","tag-gisborne","tag-liquid","tag-longer","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nzta","tag-operation","tag-people","tag-pointing","tag-signs","tag-sports","tag-station","tag-taken","tag-to","tag-transport","tag-waste"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}