Wairoa Mayor: Road upgrades between Napier and Wairoa will boost safety and accessibility

That's the message from Wairoa mayor Craig Little, who told Rural News he's hopeful that when the next couple of stages of work are completed, it will make it even better.

Following Cyclone Gabrielle, the road was completely closed for three months, making the normal hour or so long journey to Hawke's Bay nigh impossible. For Wairoa residents, Hawke's Bay is where they go for major medical appointments, it's where the primary products go to the port of Napier and it's the road that brings in normal supplies for the town.

It's taken two years to get the road into a reasonable condition. At one stage when the road was opened it took at least another half hour to negotiate because of the repairs which reduced many sections of it to a single lane. Even now, access across the Waikare river is by a single lane Bailey bridge and there are at least four sets of traffic lights in operation to allow repair work on the road to continue.

But on the positive side, Little says they have been blessed with good funding from NZTA which has made the recovery easier. He says the funding has logically come with specific conditions, but he says these have been fair and his council has not had a problem complying with these.

"Despite all this, I am 100% concerned about the overall fragility of the road and I keep reminding our people that what happened before could happen again. Quite honestly the state of the present road, SH2, is still stopping people from Wairoa going to Hawke's Bay," he says.

Also, with the main SH2 being out for a long time, local roads to farms within the district have suffered even longer delays.

Little says the damaged infrastructure has caused major problems for farmers trying to get stock to the works or saleyards and getting supplies for their farms. He says trucking companies haven't been able to make two return trips from Wairoa to Napier in a day and this has added stress and cost to farmers and trucking companies alike.

"But it's been a relatively good year for farming so the mood for people on the land has improved," he says.

Little says the extra $219 million granted to the five local councils in Hawke's Bay and Tairawhiti in the budget will help.

He says by the time it's divided up amongst the five, the amount will not be huge, but it will help complete some important projects.