Modified consent application should allow Wharf Road walkway construction to start soon

March 24th, 2011

Tasman District Council engineers have come up with a new resource consent application for the long-stalled project to construct a walkway beside Wharf Road, which will hopefully allow the application to go ahead more easily.

Bob Cooke reported to his fellow Keep Motueka Beautiful committee members this week that renewed talks with TDC's Steve Elkington have been fruitful and resulted in the revised non-notified consent application conditions. Bob described the document as "a commonsense consent", and it is now before the Council's Planning Committee.

The new path will run from the High Street South roundabout to the existing path at the eastern end of Wharf Road, near Trewavas Street, a distance of about 800 metres. It has been designed with a width of 1.5m and be at least 500mm above spring high water tide level.

According to the revised application, the Estuarine silt and mud will be scraped back from the fill footprint to allow placement of the fill and then dragged and spread back over. The extent of the footprint or reclamation has been calculated to occupy an area of 2474 square metres. The fill for the path is to be excavated from the proposed hospital wing site at Motueka Community Hospital off Courtney Street. The material is presumed to be typical of Motueka soils.

The material will be tipped from the side of the road over the northern roadside embankment and then spread and track rolled by a small digger. The proposed rock rip-rap will be limestone extracted from a local Takaka Hill Quarry. The rock will be either machine or hand placed to form an even sloping face. Suitable filter-fabric will be laid over the prepared earth prior to placement of the rock.

Two small bird sanctuaries will be located beside the path part-way along its length, covering an area of about 36m2. These will be formed by stripping back the estuary sediment and then placing and compacting imported fill followed by respreading the estuary sediment over the slopes of the newly formed islands.

Planting will then follow, and it is intended this work will be completed before the end of 2011. Plantings will include Juncus as well as taller species such as Flax and Plagianthus divaricatus to provide cover for wading birds.

The speed limit of Wharf Road was reduced from 100kph to 70kph in April 2010.

Keep Motueka Beautiful is planning to start the work in early May 2011, subject to consent being given.

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