Work on building a new Lower Queen Street bridge work to begin in mid-May with five days of site preparation works and a temporary road closure.

Borck Creek is a major watercourse that takes stormwater from the Richmond foothills and urban area into the Waimea Inlet.

The Borck Creek system drains a total of 1,430 hectares of land from the Richmond foothills in the south and east.

In a heavy rain event, the existing Lower Queen Street bridge is now the bottleneck in the Borck Creek catchment and the first site where flooding would occur.

The bridge, next to Headingly Lane, isn’t wide enough to allow a big stormwater flow to pass. The new longer bridge will ensure water can flow away better during heavy rain.

The current bridge is about 14 metres long and will be replaced by a new 48-metre-long structure which will allow the channel under it to be significantly widened.

Plans also include a cycleway under the bridge to link Berryfields with the coastal section of Tasman’s Great Taste Trail.

During the project, Headingly Lane will be closed at the Queen Street intersection with a temporary road built extending Saltmarsh Lane to Headingly Lane providing access to the Headingly Centre.

Preliminary sitework for the $11 million project is due to start in mid-May and Lower Queen Street will be closed between the Arvida Lifestyle Village entrance and the McShane Road intersection for a week from Monday 12 May.