Owner of the River Run Cafe in M\u014dkau, Dev Rawat, said road closures were devastating for his business.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe depend on the people who passing through State Highway 3 and when the road is shut no one come into the cafe and that impact us lots.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we have to shut our business for those days, and last time we were shut for five days and there was no business.\u201d<\/p>\n
He would like the Government to offer compensation.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, the store was closed more than six or seven times, and that\u2019s affecting our business lots. It\u2019s hard to pay our staff, pay bills and everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the Government\u2019s not thinking about the local businesses around here. They\u2019re supposed to think about it and give some compensation, so we can get some relief.\u201d<\/p>\n
NZTA incident controller Kendra Ludeke said closing the road was always a last resort.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be closing the road unless there was another way. We\u2019ve looked at a number of other options, but this is the most efficient way to install these culverts, which means installation happens quicker and the road open quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ludeke said the work requires heavy machinery to be on the road to make a deep excavation, with large open trenches and there was no space for vehicles to pass around or safely through the worksite.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is quite narrow and we\u2019re working under what\u2019s already a single lane due to the slip above it. So, it\u2019s paramount due to safety for the road workers and for crews and for people that drive the road every day that we close it to be able to complete this work.<\/p>\n
Ludeke thanked the local community and the travelling public for their patience.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople travelling through Awakino Gorge and local communities have been incredibly understanding and patient over the past few months. We don\u2019t take that for granted. We understand a four-day closure of the road will be highly disruptive for local communities, businesses, freight operators, emergency services and people travelling between regions.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoing this work next month over a four-day full closure will be a big step forward in the recovery of this stretch of road and sets the area up for the next stage of recovery work.<\/p>\n
M\u014dkau Butcher owner Bryan Lester said NZTA found themselves between a rock and a hard place.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, well, I\u2019ve got mixed emotions, the work has to be done. Those culverts do need replacing and I know it\u2019s pretty hard for them to do the culverts while trying to get in and out with trucks with dirt and stuff like that. But yeah, it\u2019s certainly … mixed emotions because it\u2019s not good for my business.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has a huge impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lester said he\u2019d consider shutting shop during the road closure too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, we might … close as well. I mean the last closure, I think I served five customers for a whole day when they had the road closed only a week or so ago. So yeah, pretty much we close our doors.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Plymouth Mayor Max Brough said closures on SH3 at Awakino were becoming routine.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, it\u2019s hard work, isn\u2019t it? But, you\u2019ve got to do the work. The problem it comes back to is that there\u2019s no alternate route, you know, no easily accessible alternate route, right?<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, it\u2019s disappointing, but you can\u2019t fix something without doing the work, can you?<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s a tough call, right? Tough call for Taranaki yet again this year. Will it be nine closures, I think? Nine if we get to the end of the year without any more closures.\u201d<\/p>\n
The culverts were being delivered separately from the $50 million Awakino Gorge resilience package that was announced in May. It was focused on reducing the risk of slips and similar events happening in the future and was currently in development.<\/p>\n
This work would be focused on reopening this section of road to two lanes following the April weather event and slip.<\/p>\n
NZTA\u2019s recommended detour during the road closure was via the SH1-SH4 route.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Owner of the River Run Cafe in M\u014dkau, Dev Rawat, said road closures were devastating for his business.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[260113,10166,17163,114725,121901,53904,5133,111,43,139,69,8244,33229,5659,171602,27300],"class_list":["post-555891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-awakino","tag-businesses","tag-closure","tag-eighth","tag-gorge","tag-hurting","tag-martin","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-recent","tag-robin","tag-say","tag-sh3","tag-theyre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555891","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=555891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}