The Kirikopuni Valley Bridge presented one of the most challenging and technically demanding scaffolding projects Northland Scaffolding has undertaken. The remote Northland location, combined with a significant drop to the bush and waterfall below, meant that safe access to the bridge's steel support structure required careful planning and engineering. Northland Scaffolding designed and installed a four-level fully suspended hanging scaffold, dropping approximately 8 metres below the bridge deck, to give painters safe and complete access to the full steel structure for recoating. The entire system was designed by Layher and signed off by a structural engineer — a far cry from the days when, locals tell us, the same bridge was painted from a ladder hanging on a rope.
As the largest hanging scaffold Northland Scaffolding had completed to date, the Kirikopuni Bridge project is a strong example of what modern health and safety practice looks like on complex infrastructure jobs. With full compliance with New Zealand scaffolding standards and the Good Practice Guidelines for Scaffolding, every worker on site had a safe, stable platform to work from at height over difficult terrain. If you have a bridge, infrastructure, or industrial project that requires engineered access solutions in Northland or Whangarei, get in touch with our team.
