Waitaki site considered

Press, 9 December 1989, Page 3

Waitaki site considered

The Canterbury Regional Council will investigate buying the Waitaki International building in Kilmore Street. It is leasing the fifth floor of the building and has about 80 of its staff working there. The remainder are based at the former offices of the North Canterbury Catchment Board, in Worcester Street. The council’s reserves and property committee yesterday agreed that the long-term lease of the whole Waitaki building should be taken up by the authority. It also recommended that the possible purchase of the site be investigated. The chief executive, Mr Malcolm Douglass, said the Regional Council wanted all its 156 staff working in the same building. The Catchment Board offices would be vacated next year, but it had not yet been decided what would happen with that building. Designers are planning how a council chamber, committee

rooms and a councillor lounge room can be provided in the Kilmore Street premises. Maori Study A $35,000 project will be done to identify Maori values in relation to resources within the Canterbury region. Canterbury regional councillors yesterday agreed the council should pay half the cost of the survey, which will provide it and the Maori advisory committee with a common information base. The advisory committee must be established by the Regional Council under the Local Government Amendment Act. The proposed survey will identify areas of traditional and cultural use. It will define traditional values and uses of resources such as land, water and forests and will help in the development of policies for their future use and management. The chairman of the Ngai Tahu Maori Trust Board, Mr

Rakiihia Tau, proposed the study in a paper prepared for the Regional Council. He identified some priority areas where resource information gathered during the project could be included in management plans and investigations now under way. These included the trust board’s present study of the Waitaki River in preparation for impending water-right applications by Electricorp. The Regional Council is hopeful that the project will be completed by March 31. It will be done by two people nominated by the board who are familiar with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, local history and traditions. Lake Lambie Discussions on the feasibility of forming a lake to increase the flow of the Ashburton River and make more water available for irrigation are likely to be reopened.

Cr Roger Tasker told yesterday’s operations and rural services committee meeting that the formation of Lake Lambie was identified as the most attractive option for increasing the river flow in a feasibility study commissioned by the former South Canterbury Catchment Board. The study estimated the lake would cost about $4.8 million to construct. The water storage providee by the lake would guarantee a minimum flow of five cumecs in the river and would enable the irrigation of 6000 hectares more land. A full feasibility study costing about $390,000 never went ahead because the former Ashburton borough and county councils could not agree on the proposal. However, Cr Tasker’s recommendation yesterday that there be further consultation with the affected parties was agreed upon. The aim of consultation will be to make progress towards an engineering, economic and environmental impact study.