‘No money for tidegates’

Press, 15 July 1982, Page 6

‘No money for tidegates’

The Christchurch Drainage Board has been advised to drop for the time being a proposal to build tidegates on the lower Heathcote River to stem flooding in Woolston. The chairman of the board's development and construction committee, Mr. T. B.' Whelan, said that the Local Authorities Loans Board had indicated that there was “no show” of getting loan money for floodgates. Mr Whelan said he be-. lieved it was “a wise procedure” to leave any further investigation in abeyance while the board’s staff examined the total Heathcote situation., That, he thought, would take) two or three years or more. The proposal was not being abandoned, however, but merely deferred. : The committee formally recommended; to; the board

that the proposal be allowed to lapse “until circumstances change.” In a report on the investiEis in the proposal, the ’s chief engineer, Mr P. H. Hunt, said that the estim-. ated net capital cost of, a tidegate structure was $550,000't0 $750,000. . “If carefully worked the tidegates- could give flood protection in Woolston comparable to the .stopbanks during moderate storms,” said Mr Hunt. "Mpst of the benefits would-'be- intangible.” • The aesthetic benefits of deleting the tidal stopbanks, could well be negated by the /‘aesthetic disberiefits" of building a large tidegate and lowering of mean river levels, he said. • . “If the tidegates were 1 built, benefits would accrue only in the case of unusually high tides, combining with major, floods."