A giant hole in a key highway to the Coromandel Peninsula has left business owners along the coast increasingly worried about their livelihoods.
State Highway 25A is out of action indefinitely after a landslide left a 150m gap in the road.
Auckland holidaymakers could now either take the long way around or avoid the region entirely.
Tairua local Andrea Johnson feared a drop in domestic visitors would come at the detriment of Coromandel towns and livelihoods.
“You don’t go into instant panic, but you slowly start to think, ‘Oh my goodness’, this could really have an impact on our economy, and on us as locals,” she said.
“Our lives are here.”
Johnson, the owner of Tairua’s Manaia Kitchen and Bar, said she had to put on a brave face for customers and staff.
But Manaia’s revenue was down about 50 percent since the collapse of State Highway 25A.
Johnson said even during the Covid-19 lockdowns, she had not experienced so much uncertainty over the future of her business, as back then, she was able to access assistance through the government’s Covid response fund.
“This is way worse than Covid, business-wise, because we’ve just had no summer,” Johnson said. “We’ve literally had eight weeks of rain.”
Having struggled to hire enough staff for summer, she now had to make cuts to their rosters.
Although she was doing everything possible to keep her staff in work, she said targeted support like the $5 million package assigned to Auckland businesses would help.
“It would be amazing if we got some government help, because I actually think we’re going to need it to get us through.
“Unfortunately, a lot of us have missed out on the profit fat this summer because of the bad weather as well, so it’s kind of been the perfect storm.”
Across the road, Pacific Harbour Villas owner Dave Fitton said although some overseas tour groups were still booked to stay in the coming months, bookings from Kiwis had dropped right off.
About 60 cancellations came through hot on the heels of the highway slip.
Of the hotel’s 20 rooms, more than half were left empty over Waitangi weekend.
Fitton said residents had known about problems on the state highway for years and blamed successive governments for inaction.
“If you don’t address the matters, they get worse, and this is what’s happened here.”
A trip from Auckland to Tairua would ordinarily take two hours.
The collapse of the road meant an extra hour, which Fitton said might put some holidaymakers off.
He said it was vital that the road be fixed quickly.
“This is a special place that people from Auckland like to go to. You’re penalising Aucklanders as well as the people down here in the Coro.”
But as business slumped on the eastern Coromandel, some towns to the west were experiencing an uplift.
For any Aucklanders still travelling to holiday hotspots like Whangamatā, Pauanui, or Cooks Beach, the fastest route now took them along State Highway 2 and through the Karangahake Gorge.
In Ngatea, that meant a boon to business with more people stopping along the way.
Owner of the Glory Company Cafe Andrea Logan said business had picked up by about 25 percent since the slip.
“That’s what I need it to be back to, to 2019 times. We’ve been hanging out for a bit of a pick-up, so we just hope it continues.”
The lift in business came as a small relief after years of Covid lockdowns and major roadworks that brought Ngatea to a standstill.
“It’s been a three-year impact and we’re just coming out of that, although we still haven’t recovered from it, so having that traffic through has been a little bit of a silver lining on this terrible time.”
Waka Kotahi expected to provide more information tomorrow on the repairs to take place on SH25A.
