Official opening for the new Wyley’s Bridge

Published on 06 August 2015

The ‘new’ Wyley’s Bridge, which crosses the Whangaehu River at the beginning of Mangamahu Road, will be officially opened this week.

Whanganui Mayor Annette Main and Rangitikei Mayor Andy Watson will lead the ceremony at 1.30pm on Friday, August 7, accompanied by Mangamahu residents, councillors and council staff, contractors and the Wanganui Rural Community Board. Extended members of the Wyley family, who were early settlers on the Mangamahu side of the bridge and whom the original bridge is named after, will also attend.

The new bridge, (officially called ‘Bridge 46’), is the main access to the Mangamahu settlement. The new bridge has been built next to the old one, which will be retained as a heritage feature.

In 2012 Wanganui District Council engineers reported that the bridge was unlikely to last for two years. The Mangamahu community, which relies predominantly on the bridge for access and the movement of goods and services, contributed $200,000 towards this project.

Concrete Structures, which built the almost identical Mangamahu Bridge 47 in 2008, was awarded the contract for Wyley’s Bridge and work began in February 2015.

The one-lane bridge comprises a steel arch and spokes which distribute the weight of the traffic. The cost of the build is $2.4 million jointly funded by the Wanganui District Council, which provided two-thirds of the cost and one-third by the Rangitikei District Council.

More than 100,000 sheep, 5000 cattle, 500 tonnes of wool, 600 tonnes of kiwifruit and 1000 tonnes of maize travel over the bridge annually, while inputs include 2000 tonnes of fertiliser. From the end of this decade, it is predicted a million tonnes of logs will flow out of the valley.

The original Wyley’s Bridge was built mainly from timber in 1957. It was opened by Governor General Lord Cobham in June 1958, who said “a bridge is symbolic, in that it joins people together”.