Heavy rain caused damage along State Highway 6 on 18 August, 2022. Photo: Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency
Residents between Nelson and Rai Valley have expressed shock at not being warned about a seven-week closure along a stretch of State Highway 6.
Huge underslips - one of which is two storeys high - are among five sites in need of urgent repair along the flood-damaged road that links Nelson and Blenheim.
For Nigel Patterson, news of the road closure means being cut off for nearly two months while it is repaired.
He lives on Kokorua Rd, located between two of the biggest slip sites - one on the Whangamoa Saddle and the other on the Rai Saddle.
"I first heard about it on Facebook and I was a bit stunned along with the other residents up our valley, there are 20 houses in the Whangamoas and up Kokorua Road that are affected by the closure, there's about seven kids who won't be able to get to school and I think half of the residents work in Nelson."
Patterson is also the Rai Valley fire chief and splits his working week between Nelson and Blenheim as a mechanic for a winegrowing company.
He said residents had not been offered any support or options for alternative access.
"When the flood happened, Fulton Hogan gave us three or four times a day that we could travel to Nelson and we were escorted, that would be an option but it just depends on how they are going to do it, it's not good how they are doing it at the moment."
There is a forestry road close by and Patterson has asked Waka Kotahi to see if there is any possibility residents can use it.
If not, he will have to send his animals off the farm, stay in Marlborough and his wife in Nelson while the road is closed.
Heavy rain caused damage along State Highway 6 on 18 August, 2022. Photo: Supplied/NZTA
In the nearby Ronga Valley, beef farmer Justin Morrison said the news of the road closure came as a bombshell.
"We travel currently to Kokorua Road every second day to move 75 beef steers so we are totally reliant on that road being open and we will be kicking into baylage shortly down there soon, so we will need to get contractors from Marlborough through that first section into the Kokorua Valley, so it's going to be challenging if they can't get us through."
At the Brick Oven in Rai Valley, owner Michelle Turner said she was not sure whether it would be worth opening while the road was closed.
"Like 90 percent of my customers come through on that road, so what are they going to be coming out here for?"
The last year had been difficult, Turner said.
"It's been pretty tough, it's taken a mental toll, we had Covid, all the lockdowns, the mandates, then more flooding, and the road closures, and now this? It's really going to screw our business over."
SH6 between Hira and Rai Valley, Ngā Whangamoa, was closed earlier in February due to slash and slip material on the road. Photo: Supplied / NZTA
The closure also means Okiwi Bay residents and all those who use the Croisilles-French Pass Road face a long drive to get to Nelson.
Okiwi Bay Holiday Park owner Ian Montgomery said everyone was feeling a bit frustrated to be cut off once again.
"We are looking at a 70-80 percent downturn in turnover and we've had bookings cancelled already and people won't make them now because there is no passing trade," Montgomery said.
"We've had a lot of people who were travelling between Nelson and Blenheim in a motorhome or with a caravan who would come out here for a day or two, but now they are just going around the block."
But Waka Kotahi top of the south regional maintenance manager Mark Owen said it had been a big call to close the road, and it signalled the closure when the road re-opened to one lane after the floods.
It was restored for interim access, suffered further damage during rain last week and remained in a fragile state.
"We are just conscious that we do need to put back a more resilient highway link between those two areas, which has meant that we have to get in under urgency and make permanent repairs to these five vulnerable sites," Owen said.
He said Waka Kotahi could have done better consultation with residents but added they were working under urgency.
"We are still working our way through the final build methodology for this so that's why we are out there now, talking to residents and people directly affected, seeing what we can do in terms of understanding the impacts to them and their travel.
"But we need to get on and [get] this work done, particularly before the busy summer months, because we know the region has been hit hard."
Waka Kotahi was working through what options there were, if any, for access during the seven-week closure, he said, confirming they were investigating the use of forestry road access for Kokorua Rd residents.
Owen said residents who had not yet been contacted should get in touch with Waka Kotahi by emailing Tasman-Nelson-recovery@nzta.govt.nz