Drainage downgraded?

Press, 8 October 1988, Page 9

Drainage downgraded?

The Government appears to believe a square peg can fit into a round hole, says a Christchurch Drainage Board member. Mrs Judith Bruce said she was “dismayed” at the way the Christchurch Drainage Board had been “dismissed as a practical nonentity” by local government reform. Under the new city council, sewerage and drainage would be only one of about eight duties

of the council's works committee, she said. Yet the board had been set up in the first place because of people’s dissatisfaction with the priority given to drainage by the council of the day. With a part of Christchurch below sea level, drainage would become an even greater responsibility if the expected rise in sea levels eventuated, she said.

If the Government was to insist a square peg could fit into a round hole, then ratepayers should realise the funding and priority given to sewerage and drainage would inevitably suffer, she said.

The expertise and technical ability built up by Drainage Board staff over the last 100 years were other important factors to be considered, said Mrs Bruce.