Businesses near a central Auckland sinkhole fear what the future holds after it was announced repair work on the street could take four months.
Diversions and detours are in place for the busy College Hill Road, as the council rushes to stop the three-and-a-half metre-long hole from growing further.
Given how long other city roading projects are taking, some shop owners fear the sinkhole will disrupt business for some time to come.
The sinkhole opened up on Monday, causing havoc for commuters and nearby businesses.
There was already a plan to replace the century-old underground pipe beneath the road, but recent heavy rain proved too much for it to handle, and the pipe and surrounding ground gave way.
The College Hill Road sinkhole.
Photo: RNZ / Delphine Herbert
Himanshu Bhambani owns Cafe 28, located opposite the sinkhole. He was worried repairs will take longer than the estimated four months.
“They have to fix it as soon as possible,” he said. “They are saying four months – I don’t know how long it will take, it’s gonna be longer than four months.”
He said the construction site out front of his cafe was already causing problems.
Workers at the College Hill Road sinkhole.
Photo: RNZ / MARIKA KHABAZI
“Yesterday I called my insurance as well, and they said, ‘You have to prove to us that customers aren’t coming because of this.’ But how can I prove?”
Across the road, Kauri Creek Cafe owner Andy Smith said he was also preparing for the long haul.
“It’s a little bit devastating of course, to have that eyesore in front of the cafe,” he said.
“It’s not what people want to see when they’re thinking ‘time to go to a cafe’, so you do wonder, how many people does it send in the other direction?”
Smith’s cafe only opened three days ago, so the timing could not have been worse.
Head of Healthy Waters Andrew Chin.
Photo: RNZ / MARIKA KHABAZI
“There’s plenty of things underground there and I don’t know what else they might find which surprises them along the way, so whenever you hear four months, you straight away assume six months.”
Like Bhambani, Smith was figuring out how the sinkhole would impact things like deliveries.
“Normally we have a loading zone right out front there, so that’s nice and easy for deliveries,” he said.
“Obviously, I am going to have to contact the companies that I’m getting deliveries from and arrange, or at least let them know to park further up the hill or something.”
At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, council staff tried to assure Aucklanders they were doing everything they could to fix the hole.
“We’re really sorry that this has happened because we would’ve much preferred the project to happen in a much more planned and systematic way. Unfortunately that hasn’t been the case, so we’re playing catch up now,” said the council’s head of Healthy Waters Andrew Chin.
Chin said businesses on College Hill may be entitled to financial aid, although he did not think the work would have too much of an impact.
“We’ll be endeavouring to keep both sides of the street open, so we don’t envisage that there should be any business loss for this, but if they can demonstrate they’ve been negatively impacted because of the construction, we’ll absolutely consider it as part of the consent process.”
On the street, one commuter told RNZ more roadworks were the last thing the city needed.
“There’s so much roadworks going on at the moment, it’s really not good for the life of the city, so adding this on, four months, plus everything else going on? It’s really not good.”
Repairs on the underground pipe were expected to start, in earnest, on Monday.
Until then, the sinkhole remained yet another speed bump for Auckland businesses. One many hoped would be cleared quickly.
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