Collaboration the key to success in Gisborne
Aitkens Concrete, Gisborne, a family owned company for more than 100 years, was acquired by Firth back in 2017 to strengthen the network in that part of the country.
Under Firth ownership, Aitkens Plant Manager Steph McClutchie and her team have continued the Aitkins legacy of building strong relationships with their customers, where working together is more of a collaboration than a supplier and customer relationship. Case in point is significant and loyal customer Currie Construction, who in recent months moved onto the rear of the Aitkens site.
“We see ourselves as a long-standing local company, employer and long-term contributor to the Tairawhiti community,” says Sam Currie, Director for Currie Construction. “Successful contracts have enabled us to expand, invest in people and in turn, through strategic partnerships, we have been able to give back through business and jobs.”
“The vast majority of our supply partners are locally based businesses with whom we have longstanding relationships. One such supply partner is Aitken Concrete (Firth) with whom we have carried out many successful and some culturally significant, community-based projects.”
Here are a few examples:
A special mix for a special place - Puhi Kai Iti / Cook Landing Site
Completed in 2019, the development of the Puhi Kai Iti site (which is culturally significant as the landing place of Captain Cook in 1759), required a special concrete mix to achieve the beautiful white concrete base to the memorial. “This was quite a tricky job as the concrete mix required us to manually hand load bags of white cement,” says Steph. “The result is a stunning white concrete base which accentuates the culturally significant sculptures representing 1000 years of navigation and settlement in Turanganui-a-Kiwa Gisborne.”
The Beacon of Light
Big, bold and brilliant to see lit up at night, Te Pourewa (Beacon of Light) is a 12m high sculpture on Hoturangi Maunga in Uawa/Tolaga Bay which was erected in October 2019 to commemorate Tahitian ancestor, navigator and priest Tupaia and his arrival at Opoutama (Cook's Cove) on the Endeavour in 1769. Aitkens Concrete worked with Currie Construction to get the concrete for the base to the sculpture to this remote site - with the concrete delivered by helicopter.
Mahunga floodgates
The construction of a new floodgate in the Mahunga Stream (Gisborne) approx. 300m downstream of the existing floodgates started in 2019 to increase the level of flood protection provided by the Waipaoa River Flood Control Scheme (65km of earthen stopbanks).
“The floodgate project with Currie Construction has been a little challenging as the weather played havoc with us,” says Steph. “Every pour has been intricate as the slump had to be tested onsite and mapped for Council consents. The road in and out only allows one truck at a time, and with it also being 30mins out of town we had to coordinate the slumps and the timing of the trucks. The site itself is on an incline and with the wet conditions we used a top pump which boomed into a second pump which pumped into the flood gates. However, we worked closely with Currie’s and we got the pours completed successfully.”
Gisborne’s brand new skate park
A brand new multimillion-dollar skate park in Gisborne, completed in late 2021, recently hosted the National Championships in November. This state-of-the-art facility is another Aikens / Currie Construction project.
“The skate park was a year long job,” says Steph. “Every morning we went to the skate park in all weather with loads that varied from 1.3 to 15m3 of spray mix or shotcrete. The mix required was 40 MPa with a Radforce fibre in the slump with the colour added on site so it would get through the pump. The design also required a 10mm stone which we loader fed as this is smaller than a standard stone. We worked hard to get the mixes right so the finish was smooth enough for skateboarding at the highest level - which it definitely is.”