Heaphy St Roadworks 2025

BLOCKHOUSE BAY HEAPHY STREET ROADWORKS

Blockhouse Bay residents, especially those in Heaphy Street and Donovan Street have had their roads dug up and closed off, on and off since October 2023.

The Heaphy Street section was finally completed on 30 April 2025

A final piece of Watercare’s $115 million new watermain carrying water to west and central Auckland was slotted into place on 30 April 2025 after a six-year construction effort spanning seven suburbs. 

  The 914mm-diameter Huia 1 watermain begins at the Titirangi reservoirs and carries water all the way to Gillies Ave in Epsom, supplying communities along its 15.5-kilometre route.    Watercare head of water Sharon Danks was there to see the final four-metre section of pipe lowered into the ground in Heaphy St, Blockhouse Bay.  She said, “It’s really exciting to have our new Huia 1 watermain about to go into service. It replaces an old pipeline built in the 1940s that was nearing the end of its life, and also adds capacity to our water network to support new housing. 

To start with it will carry on average 30 million litres of water a day – water that originated in the western dams and we’ve treated at our Huia Water Treatment Plant. But we’ve futureproofed the Huia 1 pipeline to accommodate population growth.”    Watercare capital delivery general manager Suzanne Lucas says the project had an approved budget of $143.5m but was delivered for considerably less.  It’s tracking at $115m – almost a $30m saving on the budgeted cost.   Crews installed the pipe in stages, and not in a linear fashion. Most of the watermain is within the roading network. 

Parts of the pipe were brought into service along the way, so communities have already been seeing the benefit of this new watermain, though they may not have known it  

Watercare said, “We recognise this project was disruptive to communities and commuters along the route, and we’d really like to thank everyone for their patience while we built this critical watermain.  It goes a long way to improving the resilience of our water network in these areas and will supply drinking water to western and central communities for generations to come.”