Ngongotahā Flood Review Project - December 2021 Update

Tēnā koutou katoa,

Further to our update report in August this year (which you can find here), we wanted to give you another short update to inform you of the current progress so far. The Councils are jointly working on the implementation of the preferred engineering option to protect the community from future flood events, including an overflow channel to the south of the Ngongotahā stream combined with stopbanks, high flow bypasses, and raising part of Western Road.

This location of the proposed overflow channel impacts on privately owned land and council staff and the Community Reference Group have been working with those parties.

On 30 November, a Community Reference Group meeting was held to hear from the owners of one of those parcels of land about the proposal impacts on them and to find a way forward. That meeting was positive and the parties have agreed to next steps to find a way through the significant challenges this proposal presents to that landowner. Archaeological, survey and other work associated with the engineering solution also continues. The parties remain confident a solution can be found.

We intend to stage the works and commence stage 1 (including the bypass and raising existing stop banks) next year, 2022. This will allow us to construct some components while negotiations for stage 2 (including Western Road, new stopbanks, and the overflow channel) continue.

Once landowner approval is obtained for the overflow channel detailed design, resource consenting, archaeological approvals, procurement and tender of stage 2 can commence. We estimate these steps will take approximately 12 months to complete and following that construction of stage 2 is expected to require two earthworks seasons to complete.

We will be in touch with another update on how the project is progressing in the first half of 2022.

If you have any questions please contact helen.creagh@boprc.govt.nz