Holiday period opening hours
Over the holiday season, some of our facilities will be closed or have reduced hours.
The 70m bridge is having all of its surfaces stripped back and repainted. The new paint is better able to withstand abrasion from wind-driven sand and salt spray. Status: Completed.
Bridge status: Open.
Te Rewa Rewa Bridge opened in June 2010. Damage caused by wind-blown sand meant it was in need of repainting. Starting in September 2021, the bridge was shrink-wrapped (in sections) and had scaffolding in place, with the job lasting for 55 weeks.
There was traffic control to manage pedestrians and cyclists during work hours Monday to Friday; outside those hours, bridge access was not controlled except by signs telling cyclists to walk their bike through.
The project cost $1.3m. Waka Kotahi funded 51% with the rest coming from NPDC.
We’ve painted sections has part of ongoing maintenance but this is the first time the entire structure has been repainted since it opened in 2010.
With regular washing and touch-ups the new paint is expected to last 15-20 years.
It will be there throughout the project, which will run for 55 weeks until late spring 2022.
We did a paint trial on some of the ‘ribs’ in summer and learned a lot from that. This is a technical job given the design of the bridge, the weight of scaffolding that it can
carry, its location across a river and the need to keep any materials from falling into the river – and preparing the surfaces for painting will take a lot of work, especially
when the paint has to withstand harsh coastal weather including wind-driven sand.
Also, it’s not just the ribs that we’re painting but the entire structure, including the deck’s underside and the railings.
We have to manage the amount of weight we’re putting onto the bridge.
We are wrapping each section that we’re working on, and we will have iwi monitors on-site to check that the environmental measures are working.
No it’s not. We’re using a special paint that we tested in summer to ensure that it can be applied successfully, which will withstand the abrasion of wind-driven sand.
The project is costing $1.5m. Waka Kotahi is funding 51% with the rest coming from NPDC.
It’s unfortunate that visitors won’t get to see Te Rewa Rewa Bridge for one season but doing the job in one go means it’ll be finished sooner. When the final section of the
bridge is unwrapped at the end of the project, it will look brand new and more awesome than ever
We’re contacting key groups and organisations so that we can work around their big events.
It will clean as easily as any other paint.
Whenever the railings are being stripped down to bare metal – removing all paint and any corrosion – we'll have to stop pedestrian access for up to a couple of minutes
at a time. This is because of how loud the garnet-blaster is when it’s operating.
The stop-go will run occasionally during the project, but not during the peak times at 9am and 3pm
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Page last updated: 01:36pm Mon 20 November 2023