Road to launch could be cut off
Road washouts are threatening to cut off a small community on the Mahia Peninsula, best known to most of New Zealand as the home of Rocket Lab’s launch site.
Members of the community say they are frustrated with the amount of time it is taking to fix the three washouts on Mahia East Coast Rd.
Resident Denis Murphy said the community was already almost cut off, with several stretches already one-way.
“Anywhere else in New Zealand, if you had a road like that, you wouldn’t be allowed to drive past it.”
The washouts had happened for years, and the road got patched up but not fixed long term, he said: “[The council] cut the road back into the bank and five years down the track . . . it gets eaten away again.”
Some residents raised concerns about the impact of trucks on the road heading out to Rocket Lab’s Mahia site.
A Rocket Lab spokesperson said vehicles carrying rockets to the launch site weighed less than a tonne. The vehicles weren’t troubled by, or having an effect on, the road.
“It isn’t related to Rocket Lab’s traffic,” they said.
Murphy wanted a more permanent solution and believed it could be done by strengthening with concrete.
Wairoa District Mayor Craig Little said that would be too expensive.
“I think they have looked at that in the past, it’s millions and millions of dollars,” Little said. “We just can’t afford that.
“It is a beautiful area and if we make it all concrete I don’t think we would get a lot of support, to be honest.”
He said the council was looking at building an inland road and the NZTA was keeping an eye on that idea.
“While that coast is beautiful, it’s costing a helluva lot to keep that road.”