The celebration party of Stage One of the Whitianga Town Centre Upgrade was held last week with an official ribbon cutting and celebration after the Santa parade.

"Thanks to all the staff, the contractors Dempsey Wood civil, Boffa Miskell, Opus and all the local sub-contractors for getting the job done smartly and efficiently. Thanks to the businesses and the community for patience while the works were going on, we know it wasn't ideal, but needed to be done - and now look what we have to show for it," says Thames-Coromandel District Mayor Sandra Goudie.

It is a wonderful asset for the entire Whitianga community and surrounds. It's your place, your town upgrade so come along and use it, enjoy it and celebrate how awesome it looks," she says.

Now that Stage One has been completed, our weekly project updates will stop. However, we'll continue to bring you news of Stage Two, which involves work on Taylors Mistake and the Esplanade and the new playground, which is planned to start in April 2019.

Every week we've been promoting a local business that has been affected by the town centre upgrade. Project updates started on 5 April 2018. Since then we have supported 35 local businesses in Whitianga through our support your local business campaigns.

Supporting the local businesses was one of our main goals of our marketing strategy. There were 26 liaisons meeting with local businesses throughout the duration of the upgrade.

The construction work started in April and involved new stormwater and water supply infrastructure, modifications to the existing roadway, widening of the footpaths, new footpath paving, and a new plaza area and landscaping.

There was a great team of 115 contractors/sub-contractors involved in the project, which was completed two weeks ahead of schedule, with only two rain days that interrupted the works. Approximately 1630 metres of stormwater and watermain pipes were laid and 6386 plants were used for landscaping to give the town its new look.

We would like to thank and acknowledge all the hard work and effort put in by all those involved with the upgrade, and give a special thank you to Dempsey Wood Civil's use of local contractors and suppliers, project manager, Gerald Carty and Peter Davies with exceptional quality control.

Main local sub contractor’s onsite during the project included:

• Roadwork – four staff on all phases
• Yates Contractors – three staff on all phases
• Coastline Excavators - five staff on all phases
• Sherriff Civil – four staff on phase two and three
• Donovon and Sons Contracting – four staff on phase one
• Peninsula Engineering and Marine Ltd – welding and manufacturing onsite
• Mike Penwarden- compound fencing
• Garths Landscaping - five staff.

We would also like to thank the businesses that we supported for the site and that gave great service:

• Peninsula Hire
• Placemakers – gear purchased for the completion of jobs
• Buerepairs - tyres for plant
• Support from the Whitianga Business Association, Gary Fitzsimons.
• Whitianga Butchery – great BBQ food
• Countdown
• Frankies
• Bay Bakery - for the best coffee and smiles at 5am in the morning.
• Longshore Marine
• Z Petrol Station
• Tremendous support from The Informer
• Floyd Johnstone - Flow media who's has been great at putting together video packages every few months to show the progress of the upgrade,

And thanks to all the local media who have supported the upgrade by promoting locals throughout the duration of the work.

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