Safety rail wanted

Press, 30 August 1977, Page 6

Safety rail wanted

The Christchurch City i Council has been asked to rej place a safety rail destroyed 'by the landslide at Mulgan’s Track in July.

But the council is waiting for a soil stability expert’s [report before making any more repairs to the bend near the bottom.

That report could come to this week’s works and traffic committee, and indicate how safe from further slips the track would be if it were repaired in the same place.

The leader of a residents’ group keeping an eye on track work, Mr George Guy, said users knew the council had reopened the track as a

concession in the meantime.

“But we would appreciate a rail if they could put one in,” he said. “It must be a bit of a hazard for women with small children.” ' A critic of the council’s work so far, Mr Eric Jackson. said the council should not have opened the track at all unless it was willing to give some protection to people using it.

He said there was a constant danger of walkers falling over the 20ft vertical drop, compared with a sporadic danger of more debris falling from above.

The council’s maintenance engineer (Mr B. H. Scott) said

the soil mechanic's report was needed to indicate the wider implications of track restoration. No plan had been approved by the council for the actual long-term work. On the other side of Clifton Hill unrestricted road access to hillside homes has also run into delays. Closings of Clifton Terrace from Monday to Saturday will last now until the end of September. A drilling crew working on the hairpin bend has run into unexpectedly hard volcanic rock, slowing work considerably. Started in July, the work was earlier expected to have been finished this week.