Henley residents welcome repairs to floodbank
HENLEY residents have hope the settlement will be better protected from flooding after a nineyear battle.
The settlement lies next to the Taieri River, southwest of Dunedin Airport, which means during floods road access is often cut off and silt covers the streets.
After a particularly bad downpour in May 2010, the community informally surveyed the floodbank and found sections 60cm lower than higher areas.
Since then they have tried to get the Otago Regional Council to maintain the bank.
After floods in November 2018, council operations general manager Gavin Palmer acknowledged work was not happening there as quickly as he would have liked.
Last week he said in the past two months the council had worked to restore the floodbank and improve drainage.
It included a survey of the floodbank profile which identified low spots, and engineering work to fill them to the correct level.
‘‘The engineering work is continuing, and is expected to be completed before Christmas, weather dependent.’’
The council was also working with the Henley community to install a third outfall pipe, near the location of the two existing pipes, to improve drainage into the Taieri River after floods.
The council committed $16,000 towards these works.
Henley resident Allan Innes said he was ‘‘hopeful’’.
‘‘They have topped up a couple of low spots, which is nice. Hopefully, they fill the low spots before they put it over on top.’’
Last year, floods isolated the town, apart from by 4WD vehicles.
‘‘The one about November . . . it did hang around a long time. It took about a fortnight to go down again.’’
The 2017 flood was ‘‘a goodie’’, during which the road was flooded ‘‘up to your knees’’, Mr Innes said.
He realised he lived in a place which would always flood, he said.
‘‘We’ve got contingency plans. We all look after each other, we’ve got a good network.’’
His neighbour Jay MacLean said it seemed as though something was finally happening.
Regional councillors Carmen Hope and Andrew Noone had shown concern and contacted residents about their issues in past years, he said.
A large slip still covers half of the road northeast of the settlement, with a sign calling it ‘‘Mt Bidrose’’, after Dunedin City Council chief executive Sue Bidrose.
Council infrastructure services manager Simon Drew said it acknowledged there were higher priority sites around Dunedin following the 2017 floods and Henley Rd repairs had to wait.
‘‘Until recently, it was not feasible to complete the work because the debris was too unstable and had the potential to cause more damage and put road users and construction workers at risk.’’
The council had plans for minor stabilisation work, including building a 1mhigh retaining wall at the bottom of the slip and planting on the slopes above the road.