NZTA To Help Foot Marlborough’s 2025 Flood Bill

Saturday, 16 August 2025, 5:13 pm
Article: Kira Carrington - Local Democracy Reporter

Marlborough’s $20 million repair job after the June and July floods is to be largely covered by the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi. 

The region was pummelled by heavy rain on June 27, causing a local state of emergency to be declared due to flooding, slips and damage to roads. 

More heavy rain followed on July 3, 11 and 29. 

On Friday, the Marlborough District Council announced that NZTA had agreed to cover 91% of the cost of response activities, such as road closures and traffic management, and 81% of the cost of recovery activities, such as road repairs, through an enhanced Funding Assistance Rate (FAR). 

The council’s regional land transport committee chairperson Scott Adams, who had a farm on the damaged Northbank Rd, northwest of Blenheim, welcomed the news. 

“Marlborough Roads staff and contractors have been working to fix more than 780 faults across our entire local roads network caused by these recent storms,” Adams said. 

“NZTA have acknowledged the challenges we are facing as a council and responded very positively to our request for this enhanced FAR. We sincerely appreciate NZTA’s support in helping us to restore our local roads adversely affected by these recent weather events.” 

The worst of the damage occurred in the Awatere Valley, on Northbank Rd, and on Port Underwood Rd. 

There were also several slips on Queen Charlotte Drive, including a large slip between Ngākuta Bay and Momorangi Bay. 

“Port Underwood Rd from Oyster Bay to Rārangi is still closed because of a large dropout,” Adams said.

Adams said Marlborough Roads estimated the repair of the Northbank Rd slip would cost upwards of $1m by the time it was finished. 

An estimated 2500 truckloads of material needed to be removed. 

“This slip is 35m high, 60m across, and contains around 20,000 cubic metres of material. That’s the equivalent of eight Olympic-sized swimming pools,” he said. 

By the end of August 12, crews had removed 11,800 cubic metres of the material, he said. 

“Over the past few days, this has been at a rate of around 800m³ per day.” 

Northbank Rd was currently closed from 9am to 4pm, Monday to Saturday, with lunchtime openings 12pm to 1pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays, while repairs were being carried out. 

-LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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