It will cost more than $80 million to repair storm-damaged roads across the Marlborough district.
Some repair work underway on Kenepuru Road last November. Photo: Supplied / Marlborough Roads
Kenepuru Road and Queen Charlotte Drive in the Marlborough Sounds and Awatere Valley Road further south were the worst hit in last July's storm.
Waka Kotahi will fund 95 percent of the cost of the recovery, about $81 million of the $85.3m total cost.
It is the second largest local roads recovery project undertaken in New Zealand, surpassed only by the Christchurch earthquakes' recovery.
Representatives from Waka Kotahi, Marlborough Roads Recovery Team, and Marlborough District Council met with members of the Kenepuru community last week.
Deputy mayor Nadine Taylor, who chairs Marlborough District Council's assets and services committee, said there was a good turnout at the meetings.
"Community feedback is really important for us to inform our programme. We recently made a number of changes to our planned closures as a result of the recent meeting with the farming community here."
Waka Kotahi director of regional relationships Emma Speight acknowledged the community's patience on top of the economic and personal cost they were bearing.
"The network is still fragile, so it is important we get these designs and repairs right. Climate change and the increased intensity of storms is something we now have to factor into all our work and planning."
Marlborough Roads recovery manager Steve Murrin said the teams had repaired more than 1000 of the 1600-plus faults across the roading network.
Flood damage to Queen Charlotte Drive. Photo: Facebook / Marlborough District Council
There were still four critical sites that required complex work on Kenepuru Road.
A further closure was needed to repair the Water Tank Slip, just over 1km after Te Mahia Road's turnoff.
It is the only site that will require a closure for consecutive days, without lunchtime or evening access.
The three other complex sites, before Mahau Road, the Torea underslip and at Portage Heights, are programmed to occur one after another from late June to early December.
Feedback was sought from the community on changing the order of the complex sites and moving the Water Tank Slip repair to before Christmas.
The Marlborough Roads recovery works are planned to be completed by June 2023.