Hydro Road

Hydro Road runs off State Highway 3 near the entrance to the popular picnic spot, Meeting of the Waters.

The street was not always known by this name. On old survey maps it was marked as Albert Road and in correspondence between the Taranaki County Council and the Ministry of Works in the early 1960s it was noted as ‘Old Albert Road’. However, a letter from the engineers, Saxton & Unwin, to the County Clerk on 10 December 1964 refers to it as Hydro Road, indicating a formal change had taken place.

The new name was apt, celebrating an important aspect of New Plymouth’s industrial heritage. In 1901 the New Plymouth Borough Council engaged prominent engineer Richard Mestayer to design a combined water and electricity supply for the rapidly growing town. Work began in 1903, the scheme allowing for a joint intake and tunnel from the Waiwhakaiho River. By 1905 the new water supply system was ready for use, using gravity to supply the borough reservoir on the corner of Mangorei and Junction Roads.

This more complex and ambitious electricity scheme was completed in late 1905 and officially opened on the afternoon of 19 January 1906. A visit to the power house to inspect the generating plant was followed by the switching on at 8pm, “lighting up the streets brilliantly”. After an inspection of the new illuminations, contractors Brush Electrical Co. entertained a crowd of 50 guests with a banquet dinner in the Town Hall. 

By the end of March 1907 not only were the streets lit, but 41 consumers had connected to the system. Demand grew quickly and with a new tramway system planned for 1916, attention turned to increasing supply. In 1914 a dam was built on the Mangamahoe Stream (replaced by a new one further downstream in 1918) and finally in 1931 a large concrete-cored earth dam was completed forming Lake Mangamahoe.

The Mangorei hydro-electric plant is now owned by Manawa Energy who operate it remotely from the Bay of Plenty. It has an annual output of 20.9 gigawatts, enough to power about 3,000 homes.

The rural road is also the base of outdoor training organisation TOPEC and home to the national training centre for Hearing Dogs NZ.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Related plans:

Taranaki SO7401 Sheet 1 Block X Paritutu SD (c1926), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)

Taranaki DP4885 Sheet 1 Block X Paritutu SD (1927), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ)