Bridge gets new coat for winter
Mayor completes passion project — with volunteer help
Former Matamata-piako mayor Ash Tanner officially hung up his mayoral chains in October, but only now does he feel like he is finally done. Last Friday was D-day for Tanner’s last passion project, the revamp of Te Aroha’s Coulter Bridge, which is now sporting a new coat for winter.
Tanner and about 20 volunteers re-painted the bridge, the final step of the revamp, which comes a year after he got the moss spraying and water blasting underway.
“It’s been a long process, mainly because of the bad weather we have had . . . but it’s so good to finally get it done,” Tanner said.
The volunteers had one unifying reason to get behind the painting mission: giving back to the community.
Sue Parrott, originally from Ohaupō, ¯ moved to Te Aroha a few years ago.
“[The bridge] takes me back to my childhood. I can’t count the amount of times we went over this bridge to go to the beach. It’s nice to see it is looked after,” she said.
The bridge was last cleaned in 1992, also by a group of volunteers, including Tanner and Te Aroha local Terry Hawkins, who also helped out this time.
“This is what happens in little towns. I’ve been here all my life, I love this town. It’s quite a nice bridge looking into town and it’s looking sharp again now,” Hawkins said.
The bridge was originally due for replacement, but Tanner says he understands the New Zealand Transport Agency, which is responsible for the bridge, didn’t have the funding.
Coulter Bridge, built in 1928, spans the Waihou River and connects thousands of vehicles each day to the Waikato and Coromandel.
“It’s the entranceway to our town and it looked like crap. If tourists come to town and see something like this it’s not good advertising,” Tanner said.
“After battling through some red tape and bureaucracy, we were finally able to replicate what we did in the early ’90s.”
The “red tape and bureaucracy” included an estimated bill of $500,000, according to Tanner.
“It would have never got done . . . but we were able to do it for very little cost.”
NZTA took care of the traffic management and Tanner found a bit of leftover paint from 1992 in an old council shed last year, which accounted for half the paint needed to repaint the bridge. The remaining paint was bought with $2000 from his mayoral fund.
The moss spraying took place in April 2022 and was followed by water blasting the following May.
The bridge is named after Robert Coulter, a mayor of Te Aroha for 20 years.