Eleven homes still off limits near slip site

Press, 5 December 1981, Page 1

Eleven homes still off limits near slip site

PA Auckland Eleven homes around the Grey Lynn landslide were still strictly off limits yesterday as engineers and geologists inspected the site. By last evening there were still no answers as to what caused the hill above Shirley Road to collapse, taking with it one house and making three others uninhabitable. Demolition orders have been fixed on the houses immediately adjoining the ruined house, according to Mr Jolyon Firth, an Auckland city councillor who is chairman of the council central area Civil Defence Committee.

Mr Firth met Earthquake and War Damage Commission, fire and police representatives, and engineers at a meeting on the site yesterday. Who would demolish the house, and when, was still being negotiated. Payment for the demolition was a legal matter, he said. Mr Firth said that he would not be surprised if there was a legal inquiry into the landslide.

The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) yesterday assured the landslide victims they would receive financial relief for their plight. Mr Muldoon spoke to those made homeless by the slide during a visit to the scene at Shirley Road below the slip yesterday afternoon. He indicated that the Government might consider contributing financial relief for people affected by the slip.

At 2 p.m. all but 11 homes were declared safe and cleared for the residents to move back.

Mr Firth said that the houses were far enough away from the slip to be out of danger. He was confident that if it rained there would be no further slips. However, he “could not say categorically” that the houses would not fall.

One resident, Mrs Elizabeth Weston, who moved back into her home on the border of the endangered area, said she would be seeking an independent opinion on the stability of her home. “I am happy to move back in and I know there are people checking the area but I want someone to tell me if it is safe,” she said.

Two geologists from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research who inspected the site said it would be very difficult to say what caused the slip.

Mr L. O. Kermode said after the inspection that he would not have expected the slip to be unduly hazardous. It was likely that if the debris from the fallen house was removed, more of the cliff would fall. That was just nature taking its course, he said.

Mr Graham Mansergh said it would be possible to retain the hillside in the future but any remedial work would be very expensive. The two men have collected technical data which they say will be presented to

authorities “at the appropriate time.”

The City Council director of Works. Mr Bruce Anderson. said the next job would be to get rid of the debris from the fallen house. When this would be done depended on whether there was heavy rain. A former resident came up with a possible cause of the Herringson Avenue landslide. Mr Arthur Baker, aged 78. said the site was used as a brickworks almost a century ago and huge pits were left after the removal of clay.

He knew the area in the 1910 s, before houses and roads were built there.

“In those days there used to be an old brickworks on the site. It was disused and hadn’t been working since the 1880 s or the 1890 s.” he said.

“When I was a boy there were deep pits around that area, about 20ft or more deep, left after the clay had been dug out to make the bricks."

The pits were filled for the construction of homes and roads — "I don’t know if they were filled properly but it could have something to do with the slip."

Council workmen were yesterday providing alternative drainage services to prevent any water flow over the bank. A mass of temporary water pipes has been rigged up on houses overlooking the cliff.

Surveyors have been measuring the site to mark any movements which may occur.

However, the council has arrived too late as far as one homeless resident is concerned. Mrs Marcia Greenwood, whose home in Shirley Road was damaged by the sliding hillside, said yesterday that even if her house was still intact she would not go back to live in the street.

Two years ago her carport was damaged by a slip, the scars of which can still be seen on the hillside to the right of the present slip.

She said that the council was called in and she asked if it would stabilise the bank. “They told me it was an act of God. I think it was caused by water coming down from the top of the hill. This hill has always been waterlogged,” she said.

Mr Anderson said yesterday that the council would be investigating. Mrs Greenwood's claim along with that of another resident in Herringson Avenue, who said the council told him there was no record of instability in the area.

Another group of five people from the Shirley Road flats and an adjoining flat which has been declared offlimits were yesterday contemplating spending' the night on the grass outside a neighbouring house. Mrs Dell King said they had not been able to find anywhere to go. On Thursday night they stayed on the lawn until 2 p.m. when they were put up on a friend’s living room floor. Earlier report, Page 2