Couple moves out after Lyttelton slide

Press, 18 August 1979, Page 3

Couple moves out after Lyttelton slide

Tonne*; of earth and rock have given two Lyttelton residents an anxious week. After a section of scoria wall crashed into the rear of their rented house in Hawkhurst Street late last week, Miss V. Danrell and Mr P. Greenwood have decided to move out. “1 don’t want to be here when it starts raining again,” said Miss Danrell. The couple are using lengths of wood to support from the inside one

wall of their dining room, bulging under the weight of the slip. The scoria wall came down after several days of heavy rain when Mr Greenwood and Miss Danrell were away at work. They were yesterday preparing to move to another house in Lyttelton after spending several worrying nights with the wall creaking. The house, thought to have been built about 1886, was “pretty solid” said Miss Danrell, but

they were not happy about staying there. The Lyttelton Borough Council has written to the landlord asking him to make the house safe. Apart from the letter, the slip was “none of the council’s business,” said the Town Clerk (Mr D. A. Hillier). There was no immediate danger, he said. Slips were an ongoing problem in Lyttelton and it was obvious that more would occur, Mr Hillier said.