Oversight annoys Wildlife Service

Press, 17 May 1984, Page 9

Oversight annoys Wildlife Service

The Christchurch Drainage Board has altered the boundaries of its wildlife refuge at Bromley without telling the refuge’s custodian, the Wildlife Service. A meeting of the operations and services committee yesterday received a letter from the Wildlife Service complaining of the oversight. The chief engineer, Mr H. P. Hunt, said that the board had swapped some of its land with land belonging to the Christchurch City Council.

The council had built its dog pound and caretaker’s residence on its new land. This went entirely against the Wildlife Act, which says that no buildings were to be erected on a wildlife refuge, said Mr Hunt.

Because of an oversight the Wildlife Service had not been told of the transactions when they were proposed.

Mr Hunt said that from discussions with the Wildlife Service the alterations to the boundary were satisfac-

tory and suggested the board confirm its wishes to retain the refuge. “In considering the deletions from the refuge area, staff have always been mindful of the contribution to the area by the presence of the wildlife refuge,” said Mr Hunt. Complaint A Mairehau couple have taken a complaint against the board to the Ombudsman. Mr and Mrs B. J. Hawkins, of McFaddens Road, have told the Ombudsman that the board had failed to remedy the erosion to their property caused by stormwater being channelled to Dudley Creek through an open drain through their section. They believed that as the volume of stormwater on the drain has increased recently, even more water was being channelled into the drain aggravating the erosion problem, said Mr Hunt. Mr and Mrs Hawkins believed the board’s decision to take no action was unreasonable and unjust. Mr Hunt said that the drain was functional. “We don’t consider that work is necessary and the drain is in reasonable order. It is not perfect but certainly not worth spending the public’s money on.” The board has sent all relevant letters, memoranda and notes involving the Hawkins’ complaint to the investigating officer at the Ombudsman’s Christchurch office.

Contract worry The board will have an emergency meeting on Saturday morning to discuss work being done on the sewage pumping station in Pages Road. Mr Hunt said that no work had been done on the pumping station for at least one month, and the contractor, Waddell Holdings, Ltd, had not completed the job. The board would consider whether to take legal action against the contractor, said Mr Hunt.

He said that a temporary pumping station had had to be installed, with a power supply coming out of a manhole.

“It is important that we get something done about this temporary pumping station as soon as possible,” he said.