Wednesday 5 October 2016

Heading underwater to fix New Brighton Pier

The job of repairing earthquake damage to New Brighton Pier has been awarded to Fulton Hogan, with work taking place from February 2017 – February 2018.

The repairs will take place below sea-level. Each damaged pier column will have a caisson – a segmented watertight tube – assembled around it, driven into the seabed, and sealed at the base. Once the water is pumped out, the caissons will offer a dry environment for contractors to get to work.

“This method is the fastest available – we were expecting a repair period of between 12 and 18 months, and this is at the lower end of the scale,” says David Adamson, Christchurch City Council’s General Manager City Services.

“The way the repairs have been designed means that the impact on people who use the Pier will be kept to an absolute minimum, and we’re able to keep access open to the public throughout. There’ll be the odd closure from time to time to allow for some of the vehicles that will be required in the repair, but these will be kept as brief as possible,” Mr Adamson says.

Popular events that are based around New Brighton Pier, including the Treetech Guy Fawkes Fireworks Spectacular, the Coast to Coast and the New Zealand Surf Life Saving Championships, will all go ahead as planned through 2016 and 2017.

“The Council’s Events and Capital Delivery teams have worked closely together to make sure the repair programme slots in nicely with the city’s big community events – the events go ahead as usual, and the speed of the repair isn’t compromised in any way. It’s a win/win scenario, and come February 2018 the community will have a fully-repaired Pier with a much longer lifespan.”

The adjacent New Brighton Library is currently closed for repairs, and is expected to reopen in early 2017. The Salt on the Pier café remains open throughout the majority of the works.

The ramp running south from the Library and Pier will be closed intermittently between Monday 7 November – Sunday 11 December. This is to allow the Library’s east-facing windows to be replaced. Access to the Pier via stairs will remain.

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