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A wāhi tapu and ancient cultivation and living sites will be damaged if a new expressway is built on the Kapiti Coast.
A board of inquiry has this week heard objections to the New Zealand Transport Agency plan for McKay's Crossing to Pekapeka section of the expressway.
The Takamore Trust says while the route has been moved to skirt its urupa, the project will have an adverse effect on the cultural well being, ancestral lands and wāhi tapu of Te Ati Awa ki Whakarongotai.
The Historic Places Trust says the expressway would destroy the wetland linking the urupā with a macrocarpa known as the Maketu which was planted on the grave of a Whanganui chief of that name.
It says the wāhi tapu is of national importance to New Zealand's history and heritage.
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