31976 (2026). Tangi Utikere to the Minister of Transport

31976 (2026). Tangi Utikere to the Minister of Transport: Where does the Waihenga bridge rank in the New Zealand Transport Agency’s bridge replacement rankings and how was that ranking determined?

Hon Chris Bishop: NZTA has recently advised me that previous references to approximately 80 bridges being a higher replacement priority than the Waihenga Bridge are no longer considered accurate. Those references were derived from a 2011 document which NZTA does not consider to represent a formal ranking of state highway bridges for replacement and should not be relied upon for current decision-making. State highway bridges are subject to ongoing inspection, monitoring, and engineering assessment as part of NZTA’s asset management framework. NZTA does not currently maintain a ranking that identifies where every bridge sits in a replacement priority order nationally. It is therefore unable to provide a current national ranking of replacement priorities, including where the Waihenga Bridge may sit relative to other structures. However, it is currently undertaking updated modelling to identify structures that may need to be considered within an indicative ten-year End of Life bridge replacement programme. As noted in my reply to 31968 (2026), NZTA’s current assessment is that the Waihenga Bridge has an estimated remaining service life of 20 to 40 years, based on ongoing inspections and engineering assessments.