The Canterbury District Health Board (DHB) said high demand for testing forced it to move on plans to set up a facility after centres in Christchurch had been inundated over the past week.
There were more than 5000 confirmed active Covid cases in the Canterbury region on Wednesday.
The testing facility at the Waimakariri Hockey Turf will be drive-through only and will be limited to rapid antigen testing (RATs) collection.
Waimakariri Mayor Dan Gordon said he had been advocating for community testing facilities in the district "for some time" and had been in regular contact with DHB chief executive Peter Bramley.
"This has been through my role on the Regional Leadership Group that meets weekly with all the key agencies supporting the Covid effort," he said.
Council offered facilities to support in setting up a facility before a preferred location was identified.
DHB incident controller for the Canterbury health system’s Omicron outbreak response, Tracey Maisey said demand for testing had inevitably spiked in recent days as the number of community cases had risen.
"We'd like to thank the North Canterbury community for their patience and taking the time to visit testing centres in Christchurch," she said.
"We’re pleased to be able to respond to their needs by opening this additional site in Rangiora."
Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey said it was a significant win for the community which had been calling for a testing centre in North Canterbury as case numbers continued to rise.
"It’s great to know that all these businesses desperate to get up and running again will now have the resources to have their critical staff tested locally.
"It’s important to have access to these services locally, not only for the benefit of Waimakariri residents but also to alleviate some of the pressure on testing centres in the city which have been over-run."
The site would operate between 9am and 3pm, seven days a week beginning Thursday.
There were 437 known active cases in North Canterbury on Wednesday, including 348 in the Waimakariri District, 73 in the Hurunui District and 16 in the Kaikoura District.
The DHB confirmed rural hospitals in Waikari, Darfield, Oxford and Ellesmere would be closing temporarily due to the "rapidly increasing number of cases in the community".
A total of 23 patients from these facilities would be moved to alternative private sites.
The DHB began to reveal a more comprehensive picture of community spread over the past week after health officials initially declined multiple requests to reveal specific numbers due to concerns around privacy.
However, mounting pressure from mayors throughout Canterbury and growing case numbers led to data being more readily available.
People were advised to attend only if they were experiencing Covid-19 symptoms, they were a household contact of a known case or they had been advised to get tested by a health professional, the DHB said.
Rangiora High School’s positive cases had doubled over the past week with 26 confirmed cases at the school as of Monday.
Other North Canterbury schools which have confirmed cases include Kaiapoi Borough School, Kaiapoi High School, Rangiora New Life, Loburn School, Amberley School and Ohoka School.
Hanmer Springs Health Centre is managing its first positive cases of Covid-19 with the patients self isolating and "doing well".
The facility was now starting to utilise rapid antigen tests (RATs), a representative said on its Facebook page.
-By Adam Burns
Local Democracy Reporter
