Gully stormwater plan insufficient, say residents

Press, 23 April 1979, Page 4

Gully stormwater plan insufficient, say residents

The Christchurch [Board may review its stormwater plan for land surround-! ling the troubled bush gully! i below Mount Pleasant Road.l Some property owners on the hillside have insisted,' through their solicitors, that] before any work is done on’ the watercourse there should be a plan to deal with the stormwater problem. . But the chairman of the! I board’s works committee (Mr IT. B. Whelan) said I that work to allow more! ’water through the gully’s! I fernery during heavy rainj I should be done soon. p “No matter what you doo on the watercourse, the! fernery work has to be! done,” he said. That work, a! relatively minor job, would o keep floodwaters from being J diverted round the fernery 11 wall and down the drive to < the property at 115 Mount |i Pleasant Road. “Some residents want the|< whole lot done, the whole or]. 1 nothing,” Mr Whelan said.it “but what the whole is, I dot; not know.” Only one house was atji risk from the fernery wall j < obstruction, he said. Thei

(owner of the fernery pro-, petty had agreed to” work [being done, including putting a larger hole in the wall and’ [removing a boulder, but the home owner downstream was 'one of those objecting to the fernery work. The Drainage Board plans , to build an “energy dissipa|tor” below the Mount Pleasant Road culvert, to slow [the stormwater flow. | Objecting residents want 'to hire an independent con-,] suitant to study the gully’s] [problems, to be paid by the], [board. The board members [objected, saying that boardj engineers had already done] isimilar work. I. i One property owner be-|, [low the fernery has been]] offered $2OO by the board to;i buy materials’ for “stilling , [basins” to minimise scouring! iof his land during heavy!) rain. I t The fernery proposal was it all right as far as it went, said Mr M. J. Dobson, buti« did not dispose of the over-ij all watercourse problem. [] An original engineering:" solution was agreed upon hy! t all parties, said the board’s [j chief engineer (Mr P. J. Me- '

[William), but a basis for sharing costs of the work was still the sticking point. ! The board had already spent more than $lO,OOO in staff time investigating the problem, Mr Whelan said, “and to date we have got nowhere.” Slopbanks A study of the need for stopbanks beside the lower Avon River should be finished by July. I The need for stopbanks [to reduce tidal floods is being (reviewed up to the Gayhurst Road bridge at. Dallington., .Stopbanks may be needed! along both sides of the river ujf to the Avondale Road’ bridge, then along the west bank south to Lockslev] Avenue. On the south bank, stopbanks may be needed from! the Snell Street footbridge to Wainoni Road. In another part of the city,, some residents are protest-! ing against planned stop-' banks. They live in Aynsley Terrace, and feel that Heath-' cote River stophanks in con-! junction with the downstream; Woolston Cut would have

[little benefit. Thev could .'harm the riverside landscape. 'the residents said. Thev even employed independent townplanning and engineering con- ■! suitants to support thei: view. ] An engineer for the board land some members will meet residents on Mondax to conI.sider the complaints. The member of Parliament for Lyttelton (Mrs Ann Hercus) arranged the meeting. “If they do not want the stopbanks, they are saving thev would put up with some (flooding inconvenience,” said Mr McWilliam. Loop problems Stopbanking along the old Avon River loop round Porritt Park and the rowing [club’s premises may be [necessary to relieve flood problems in the loop. i Meanwhile. a detailed study of the loop will be done. Dredging of the channel is done every few years, but 'silt deposits form easily because of slow water flow. The cost of filling in the I loop and piping its drainage [tributaries has been estimated at $700,000.