Timaru District Council has been awarded $2 million funding from Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency for repairs to the roading network from the Rangitata River flooding in December 2019.

The funding accounts for approximately 57% of the total cost associated with the flooding event, including the initial response during the event and the recovery repairs after the event. The remaining 43% will be funded from the Council Disaster Relief Fund.

Council Land Transport Manager Andrew Dixon says that the funding will significantly help repair and improve the long term resilience of the affected roads.

“Although we managed to get traffic flowing again reasonably quickly, we still have to deal with the extensive damage on roads and bridge abutments from the river breakout flows,” he said.

“Council has been conducting repairs since the event, which enabled the roads to be passable. However, many are temporary in nature and further work is required to achieve a long term solution. This means that a complete rebuild of some sections of the affected roads is required.

“As there is no insurance cover for road infrastructure, funding from the transport agency becomes critical to enabling us to fix the road damage properly.

“The funding may also help repair and renew some of our local roads which were used as the State Highway 1 bypass during the flooding event.

“The significantly increased traffic volumes during the event resulted in deterioration of some roads and contributed to the shortening of their usual expected life span.”

Works on the majority of the affected roads are expected to be complete in six months, with some to be completed by the end of this year.

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