The paint is being sprayed around the pavements of Whitianga town this week, but no need to call in over complaints of graffiti - it's all part of the town centre upgrade.

Chorus contractors are marking out the location of their cables in the current pavements in Albert Street using spray paint. Then after Easter, civil works contractors Dempsey Wood will be setting up and bringing in the heavy machinery to start the physical construction work.

The $4.7M redevelopment along Albert St (from Hannan Rd to Campbell St) including a plaza on Taylor's Mistake, will start on Tuesday 3 April 2018 and is expected to finish approximately eight months later, before Christmas 2018.

A significant part of the contract is replacing and upgrading the underground infrastructure, which will require sections of Albert St to be closed to vehicle traffic over certain times during the eight-month period.

"We're about to start weekly meetings with all our different stakeholders, including building owners and businesses, who will be affected by the construction works," says Andrew Boden, our Council's Whitianga Town Centre project manager.

"We'll be going through the staging of the road closures and explaining the construction processes over the following months.

"In the meetings we'll talk through what worked well the previous week, what didn’t work and what needs to be improved on, along with construction being planned for the following week," says Mr Boden. "We would like to avoid surprises for everyone as much as we can."

Along with those meetings, a weekly progress report will be in the local paper The Mercury Bay Informer, along with press releases through our Council's communication channels including our e-newsletter (subscribe here), our website and our Facebook page.

Over the next week we'll be releasing the staged plans for the temporary road closures along Albert St, once we have gone over them with businesses and shop owners.

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