Hatea River Bridge Consents Sought

Applications for the raft of consents needed to build the Whangarei District Council’s proposed multimillion dollar new bridge across the Hatea River have been lodged with the Northland Regional Council.

Rob Lieffering, Consents Senior Programme Manager, for the NRC, says the District Council is seeking 11 consents. A month-long period for public submissions begins on Saturday (subs: 27 Feb) and runs until Friday 26 March.

The consents sought would allow for a proposed bridge across the Lower Hatea River between Port Rd and Riverside Dr, as well as associated roading (including three new roundabouts) but the application does not include a weir or lock system.

Mr Lieffering says the Regional Council is aware that a number of concept drawings released by the WDC prior to the consent applications being lodged have attracted considerable public comment.

‘However, the application lodged with us does not identify a specific design for the bridge. This is because the Whangarei District Council has indicated that if its consent applications are successful, it intends to tender the bridge as a ‘design-build’ contract.”

Mr Lieffering says this means the final design of any bridge would hinge on which contract the WDC ultimately accepted, provided it fell within some basic consent parameters.

“While the WDC has included three concept drawings with its application, these are simply there to illustrate what the District Council says are possible ‘design themes’. If consent for a bridge is granted, it’s entirely possible the final look of the bridge may be quite different.”

Mr Lieffering says with that in mind the Regional Council is hoping to avoid large numbers of submissions on the bridge’s ‘look’ or the consent process being used as a de facto vote on which of the concept designs provided with the application should be adopted by the District Council.

He says as applied for, the proposed bridge would be up to 300-metres long and 12.7m wide, incorporating a 3.5m wide walking/cycle path. The deck on the bridge would be at least 7.5m above mean high water springs and include a central lifting section to allow vessels taller than 6.5m to pass.

Mr Lieffering says information about the WDC application is available from both Regional and District Council offices in Whangarei, the Whangarei District Library in Rust Ave or the Town Basin Marina offices.

Alternatively information can be downloaded from www.nrc.govt.nz/notifiedconsents or www.wdc.govt.nz

ENDS

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