BOARD STILL SEEKING ESTUARY CONSULTANT

Press, Volume C, Issue 29623, 20 September 1961, Page 17

BOARD STILL SEEKING ESTUARY CONSULTANT

The Ministry of Works, because of a staff shortage, cannot undertake planning and design of drainage proposals in the Estuary as consultants to the Christchurch Drainage Board, and the Canterbury University School of Engineering cannot do the work, so the board decided last evening to ask the Auck. land University if it could assist with model studies.

Reporting to the board, the works committee said the Ministry of Works had been asked if it could act as the board’s consultant in the preparation of model studies of Estuary improvements, including the possible erection of a barrage. Replying, the Ministry said the solution of the Avon and Heathcote Estuary was a matter in which the planning of the whole of the board’s operation was interwoven. Treatment of the Estuary could only be decided as the result of planning and disposal of drainage of the whole district.

Dredging and reclamation migh be more desirable than a barrage, but only the most complete investigations would enable a firm recommendation to be made, the Ministry said.

To an earlier suggestion that the School of Engineering might undertake a model study of the Estuary to determine the effects of a barrage

at Moncks Bay, including moveable bed studies, the university had said it was unlikely that the school could allocate space for such an investigation, the committee said. An offer that the teaching staff’s services would be made available on a consulting basis, with the space and technical assistance and materials being provided by the board, was not satisfactory to the board. Apart from being short of technical staff, the board required the consultant .to be responsible for interpretation and design.