Work begins on new Wikitoria Road culvert

Published on 05 July 2019

Whanganui District Council has started work on a new box-culvert over the Awarua Stream on Wikitoria Road in Putiki. The stream flows from farmland between No 2 Line and State Highway 3, then under State Highway 3 and Airport Road, and into the Whanganui River near Corliss Island.

Site work on the culvert began on Thursday, 4 July 2019 and will be completed by Friday, 13 September 2019. Some large willow trees next to the road will be felled in preparation for the culvert’s construction. Traffic management will be in place during construction.

“Further enhancements to the Awarua Stream will be carried out when work on the culvert is complete. These include removing invasive plant species, fencing, and planting native plants on the edges of the stream downstream of the culvert,” says the Council’s Senior Stormwater Engineer, Kritzo Venter.

“This includes riparian planting, fencing the margins of the stream to protect it from stock and constructing fish passages by lowering culverts and adding rocks to the water flow, enabling fish to swim to breeding areas.”

The new culvert is part of a wider programme to improve the Awarua Steam, which began in 2013. The New Zealand Transport Agency is funding 61 percent of the cost of the new culvert.

The work on the Awarua Stream is partly funded by the Whanganui River Enhancement Trust and is part of the Healthy Streams initiative, which is a community project led by the Council in partnership with local iwi, Horizons Regional Council, government departments, charitable trusts, commercial businesses and landowners. The aim of the initiative is to keep waterways in our district healthy and functioning well.