Te Kaha roading upgrades to finish six months earlier than expected

Wednesday, 26 February 2025

The Christchurch City Council is spending $34m replacing pipes and getting the streets surrounding One New Zealand Stadium ready for its opening in April 2026.

Road works around Christchurch’s Te Kaha stadium will be finished six months earlier than expected.

The $34 million project has caused disruption to businesses, commuters and residents since it started in July last year.

The project had been expected to take 18 months to complete, but the Christchurch City Council said on Wednesday the bulk of the work would be done by July - six months ahead of schedule.

Commuters have faced delays on Madras St since the project started in July last year.

The work has involved replacing century-old water pipes and making above ground changes to cater for the One New Zealand Stadium, opening in April 2026.

Crews have been working weekends and sequencing the work to save time, council city infrastructure general manager Brent Smith said.

About 100 contractors work on the site each day.

“As a result, we’re looking at around a year for the bulk of the project to be delivered, instead of the originally anticipated 18 months.”

Work has centred on Barbadoes and Madras streets as well as Tuam, Lichfield and Cashel streets.

Smith said major works would start to wrap up from May, with minor works including line marking, landscaping, and street lights continuing into the spring.

However, he warned there was still about three months of intensive construction ahead, involving several road and intersection closures, as well as night and weekend works.

Lichfield St has been a sea of orange road cones and temporary fencing as works are completed.

The corner of Cashel St, leading onto Madras St, will be closed for about five weeks from this week, so contractors can install new traffic lights, kerbs and pavements.

The Barbadoes St and Madras St intersections on Tuam St will close periodically during April to rebuild the pavement.

Most of the Tuam St work would happen on weekends and overnight to lessen the impact on residents and commuters, but there would still be come disruption between April 11 and 27.

Other permanent road layout changes will also soon come into effect.

Lichfield St east of the stadium will be converted to two way between Fitzgerald Ave and Barbadoes St in the next couple of weeks.

Tuam St will then be converted to one way, making all of Tuam St east-bound within the central city.

The council said the changes were designed to make it easy for people to get to and from events at the new stadium.