Sea lettuce collection

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32797, 23 December 1971, Page 18

Sea lettuce collection

Sea lettuce in the Estuary will be collected at high tides to see if this will ease the problem. The work was not necessarily the board’s responsibility, but the Chief Engineer (Mr P. J. McWilliam) had been authorised to make a trial collection, with the possibility of it being done two or three times a year if it was successful, the works committee reported to the Christchurch Drainage Board. The Christchurch Drainage Board wants to remain as it is until there is a regional authority, when it could be transferred in its entirety. This was the recommendation of the works committee, adopted by the board last evening, after considering the provisional area scheme for North Canterbury proposed by the Local Government Commission. The commission proposed that initially those functions of the board which were within the area recommended for the new Christchurch city should be transferred to the City Council; and that later there should be a transfer of regional activities to the proposed regional council.

In general, the scheme was favoured by the committee, but it had reservations. First, it said the board had built up a specialist organisation with specialist staff and considered that this should not be dismantled. Because of its constitution, organisation and set up, the board might form the nucleus of the proposed regional authority, the committee said.