HEATHCOTE RIVER WORK

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25953, 5 November 1949, Page 5

HEATHCOTE RIVER WORK

RELATION TO TUNNEL ROAD

IMMEDIATE STUDY URGED

When the North Canterbury Catchment Board yesterday approved a recommendation from its drainage and rivers control committee that it should draw the attention of other local' bodies to the need for widening and deepening the Heathcote river to provide an efficient channel for storm water and drainage, Mr W. F. Young, district engineer of the Ministry of Works and also a member of the board, urged that the matter was one which should be given immediate study. In the lower reaches of the Heathcote his department was busy laying out the land for the proposed tunnel road, said Mr Young, and the crossing of the Heathcote river was the first problem confronting them.

Before the actual construction stage was reached it was vital that consideration should be given to the treatment of the river and its alignment. There was a suggestion that the river should be short-circuited or straightened.

The recommendation adopted by the board was: “That the board draw the attefition of the Christchurch City Council, the Christchurch Drainage Board, and the counties adjoining the Heathcote river, to the necessity for widening and deepening this river in order to make it an efficient channel for the storm water and drainage which will flow into it in increasing volume as the years go by. This should, we consider, receive attention right back to the first-class farm lands of the Cashmere Valley. Consideration should also be given to the question of planting trees on some of the higher lands adjoining this river so as to slow up the periodic rushes of storm water.”

It was also recommended that a conference of representatives of public bodies concerned and members of the board, its engineers and soil conservation officers might result in the start of some useful project. It was agreed that the Ministry of Works should be represented at such a conference.

The chairman (Mr W. Machin) said that the recommendation should be the start of some important operations on the river. Something had to be done and it was felt that a start

should be made now. The question of erosion was hot so important, he said. Moncks Bay and a number of other little inlets would be built on, and where people were buying building sites they were taking good care against erosion.