FORESHORE EROSION.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 August 1921, Page 4

FORESHORE EROSION.

PROBLEM IN NEW PLYMOUTH. INSPECTION BY THE COUNCIL. The menace of the sea along the foreshore at New Plymouth, a problem that was strongly impressed upon the Borough Council by the recent severe storm, is causing not a little uneasiness. The absence of particularly heavy storms for a number of years past, and the apparent safety of the seafront under those conditions, has lulled past and present councillors and the public generally into a sense of false security, and little has been done to provide for immunity from erosion during such a storm as the recent one. As the position stands at present the East End pavilion and its surroundings are in danger of being swept away by the next heavy storm, while the railway line and private property in several places are in a similar predicament. With a view to forming some idea of possible remedies, an inspection of the East End beach, from the railway station to the Te Henui river, was made by the Borough Council yesterday. Th© unanimous opinion was expressed that temporary and piecemeal measures to cope with the menace were of no use. At the same time it was acknowledged that a comprehensive scheme of a permanent nature was blocked by the impossibility bf securing finance, as it ( was evident that a scheme of fortification that would effectively stop the sea would cost a very large sum. The liability of th© Railway Department to carry a large portion of the burden was looked upon by the council as indicating the most hopeful meant! of meeting the caee. As the .position stood at the present time the railway was exposed to inroads of the sea in several places, and for that reason alone councillors considered that it was in the interests of the railway) service that the department should assist in stopping the erosion. Furthermore, if the council’s buildings were removed from the sea side of the railway; line to a place of safety the problem of erosion would be left almost entirely to the Railway Department. Regarding the suggestions of removingthe pavilion the council decided to confer with the East End Committee and 1 to discuss the matter further at the nextmeeting of the Fitzroy Ratepayers’ Association.