Building safer farms, one underpass at a time
Farms divided by State Highways or even smaller Council roads can create major challenges for farmers, especially when moving stock from one side of the property to the other. In regions like the Waikato - home to many of New Zealand’s largest dairy herds - crossing a State Highway is possible but only under strict conditions and with the appropriate permits. In most cases moving livestock across major roads is prohibited unless the Council issues a permit for a designated safe crossing point or … an underpass is installed to eliminate the risk entirely. That’s where the teams from Curin Contractors and Humes come in.
“We’ve worked with Humes for many years and when a customer requests options for culvert underpasses I call Micheal Pettitt, Key Account Manager for Humes and we sort out together what is needed and how to support the customer, in this case the farmer,” says Tyler Moses, Quantity Surveyor for Curin Contractors.
Curin’s had to keep one side of the road open to traffic at all times.
“The most recent installation we’ve completed with Curin Contractors is for a farm in Mangakino that is split by SH30,” says Michael. “Thirteen 4m(W) x 2m(H) x 1.55m(D) concrete culverts, were specified to span the road. We worked with Curin Contractors to get them to the installation site and the Curin Contractors’ team had the tricky job of installing the underpass in two phases so the road could remain open at all times.”
With the new tarseal only going down on the underpass in early December, the cows may not even have had a chance to check it out yet!
