Key piece of RiverLink puzzle still missing as start date looms

Thursday, 17 October 2024

Hutt City Mayor Campbell Barry in May 2023 announcing that an interim agreement had been signed with contractors to build Riverlink.

Billed as a transformative project for the city of Lower Hutt and talked about for decades, little is still known about a key aspect of RiverLink ‒ the new Melling Interchange ‒ as the construction date rapidly approaches.

The project was first announced by Labour in 2020 with a budget of $700 million but has stalled as contractors and NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi work on the design.

An artist’s impression of the revised design for the Melling Interchange.

As well as two new Melling bridges and an interchange on SH2, RiverLink includes a significant upgrade to stopbank defences, two bridges over Hutt River/Te Awakairangi, a new Melling Station and turning the central business area back towards the river.

An alliance was launched by Hutt City Council mayor Campbell Barry in May last year with a supposed start date for RiverLink later that year. But a number of start dates have come and gone.

And in March, both Hutt City and Greater Wellington withdrew from the alliance. Since then the regional council has made significant progress on flood protection work.

In September, Transport Minister Simeon Brown included the Melling interchange in a $3.3 billion package of projects which he said would help get the local economy moving. However, much of the funding was for projects like Melling, new Wairarapa trains and the Petone to Ngauranga seawall and shared path, that had previously been announced by Labour.

Getting details of the design and when work might start is frustrated by NZTA’s refusal to answer questions, quoting commercial sensitivity.

On Tuesday, it issued a statement confirming previous statements that it was still at the planning stage. Details about the design and cost would not be known until the planning process was completed.

Hutt City mayor Campbell Barry, the then National list MP Chris Bishop and Greater Wellington chair Daran Ponter at an announcement that RiverLink would begin in 2023. A year later both Hutt City and Greater Wellington withdrew from the alliance running it, citing a lack of progress and communication.

What did become clear from Brown’s recent announcement was that a key component of the design was missing.

Greater Wellington began demolishing houses to upgrade flood defences in September 2023.

The project has always been described as transformative, as it involves moving the Melling train station south and connecting it to the inner city via a bridge.

In 2022 the city council received $98.9m from the Infrastructure Acceleration Fund to upgrade infrastructure, which it hoped would lead to more than 1000 new apartments and dwellings, as part of the project.

Keeping the Melling line operating has another long-term advantage, as it would allow for a new rail line to be built connecting with the existing Hutt Valley line at Upper Hutt. That would not only add significant resilience to the network but also significantly shorten commuting times for Wairarapa and Upper Hutt residents.

The prospect of no bridge has infuriated Barry who earlier this year wrote to National’s Hutt South MP, Chris Bishop, reminding him of the importance of it to the city.

Replacing the Melling Bridge has been spoken about since the 1990s.

Talk of chopping the second bridge from RiverLink has had an unexpected consequence with Greater Wellington councillors acknowledging it could lead to the closure of the Melling line, a two-stop side branch of the Hutt Valley Line.

In June, Waka Kotahi released what it described as interim design for the interchange.

Regional manager of system design Kesh Keshaboina said it would be “more efficient, safer, and easier to build”.

It was unclear exactly what he was comparing it with but Waka Kotahi subsequently provided a copy of an earlier concept design.

In August, a Waka Kotahi newsletter reinforced the need for an interchange with about 40,000 vehicles using the existing intersection daily.

Keshaboina defended the lack of progress and repeated the claim that work would start early next year.

“We want to assure you that working through the design in this way will help ensure we can deliver the best value for money and the best outcomes for this community.”

If there is a bright spot for RiverLink, it is the work being done by Greater Wellington on flood defences.

Programme manager Wayne O’Donnell confirmed stage one of the $295m upgrade would be completed this month, on time and within its $22m budget.

Stage two is due to be completed by mid-2026 and will help defend the central city from catastrophic flooding.

The crest of the stopbank has been raised up to 1.5ms, protecting Hutt Hospital, hundreds of homes, and the central city from a 1-in-200-year flood.

There is a 0.5% chance of a flood that size happening in any year. Previously, the stopbank provided protection from a 1-in-65-year event.

Melling is classified as a Road of Regional Significance.