Rock armouring along Katiki Beach has been completed under budget and ahead of schedule.
The NZ Transport Agency project — which involves placing rocks along the shore to stop the sand being washed away and protecting 7km of StateHighway1 from coastal erosion — began in March this year.
While it was expected to be finished within a year, the major work was finished by the end of last month.
Senior project manager Jason Forbes said that as a final claim was yet to be received, the total cost was unknown, but it
would be less than the $3million budgeted, making the project ‘‘very successful’’.
Rock armouring was undertaken at 10 sites along Katiki Beach, between Shag Point and Moeraki on State Highway1, and contractors worked across three different sites at the same time.
The project was the first rock armouring work along the beach, but it had been monitored since 1994. Three high-risk sites were armoured in 2017.
Contractors worked carefully to move small boulders along the beach, and work around the sites of historical significance.
Additional work including creating highway support further up the embankment, was completed while contractors were on site. There was still some landscaping to complete, Mr Forbes said.
