FRIENDS OF THE ŌTAKI RIVER WIN REGIONAL HERITAGE AND ENVIRONMENT AWARD

The Friends of the Ōtaki River has been recognised at the Wellington Airport Regional Community Awards, winning the Heritage & Environment section.

Kāpiti Coast District Council Chief Executive Pat Dougherty says he’s delighted to see our Kāpiti Coast Civic and Community Award winners recognised at the regional level.

“This dedicated group of volunteers has made a huge contribution through their work to enhance the Ōtaki River and estuary as well as raising environmental awareness,” Mr Dougherty says.

“I was lucky enough to attend the recent Ōtaki River Walkover hosted by the Greater Wellington Regional Council and the Friends of the Ōtaki River. The transformation that has been achieved in recent years is amazing. It is very impressive what can be done when a strong group of volunteers and the local councils work together along with the community.”

Chairman of the Friends Max Lutz says he’s very grateful to the Wellington Airport and the Wellington Community Trust for the award, as well as to the Council for their support through the nomination process.

“The work our group does is a huge team effort,” Mr Lutz says.

“We’re very lucky to have an enthusiastic core of 25 to 30 volunteers that turn out each week to do things like potting seedlings, weeding, or making signage. We actively seek outside funding for our projects, and are lucky to have so many local people and businesses get in behind our projects.”

In this last year the group – which has 290 listed members – has planted more than 5,000 native trees, opened the Greenfield picnic area and a boardwalk at the estuary, opened an information kiosk/shelter where people can get information on the walkways, established an arboretum and invested in predator traps.

For their Arbor Day planting the group works with pupils from a different local school each year, this year teaming up with Te Horo School.

KĀPITI MAJOR EVENTS FUND 2016 SUPPORTS ICONIC EVENTS WITH LOCAL FLAVOUR

The Māoriland Film Festival, Ōtaki Kite Festival, Coastella Music Festival and the Kāpiti Food Fair are to receive financial support through the Kāpiti Major Events Fund 2016 to grow and develop their signature events.

The Kāpiti Coast District Council has made $160,000 per annum available over the next three years to develop events that have a distinct Kāpiti flavour and attract visitors in the off-season, from late March to October.

Growing and increasing the vibrancy of the district’s major events is a key deliverable of the Kāpiti Economic Development Strategy 2015-2018.

The Council is working with key stakeholders to promote and grow a vibrant major events portfolio that will bring economic benefits to Kāpiti.

Funding allocation

COUNCIL CALL CENTRE DOES WELL ON THE NATIONAL STAGE

Kāpiti Coast District Council’s call centre has been judged in the top 10 council call centres in New Zealand.

The Association of Local Government Information Managers (ALGIM) runs an awards programme to encourage excellence in local government customer services, with the awards presented at ALGIM’s annual customer services symposium.

This year’s awards included a new, surprise category for council call centres that was announced at the 2016 symposium in Wellington on 19-20 September.
All council call centres in the country – with the count reaching close to 80 – were “mystery shopped”. This included a standard query and were rated on a range of factors. Environment Canterbury’s response was rated the best.

WORKS TO IMPROVE PEDESTRIAN AND CYCLIST ACCESS TO PARAPARAUMU TOWN CENTRE ON TRACK

Improvement works on Kāpiti Road to deliver safer pedestrian and cyclist access to and from the Paraparaumu town centre are continuing.

The work involves undergrounding power and creating a 2.5 metre shared path on the south side of Kāpiti Road between Arawhata Road and Ngahina Street.

On-road cycleways will also be created on both sides of Kāpiti Road along the same stretch.

Kāpiti Coast District Council’s Infrastructure Services Group Manager Sean Mallon says despite losing some time at the start of the project due to bad weather the Council is still on track to complete this work in December.

“Contractors have been working along the north side of Kāpiti Road between Arawhata Road and Warrimoo Street to dig trenches and lay ducting for electricity cables and will continue on up to Moana Road over the next few weeks.”

To allow work to progress safely the bus stop on the north side of Kāpiti Road outside number 36 will be temporarily relocated to outside number 32 Kāpiti Road from Sunday 2 October.

The Council also needs to dig trenches across Kāpiti Road in two sections outside numbers 68 and 70 Kāpiti Road and outside numbers 36 and 40 Kāpiti Road to enable work to progress.

Mr Mallon says this work will take place in the first week of October.

“There will be some disruption while these works are carried out but we aim to keep this to a minimum. Our team will work at night and traffic management measures including stop/go controls will be in place from 7pm until 6am,” he says.

“The bigger picture is that once this work is complete pedestrians and cyclists will benefit from safer access to and from the Paraparaumu town centre.

“Once this work is complete we will look at options for improved pedestrian and cyclist access to the beach end of Kāpiti Road.”

For more information visit www.kapiticoast.govt.nz/kapiti-road-improvements

NEW STORMWATER SYSTEM NEARLY COMPLETE

Final works are being carried out on a new stormwater system at Ōtaki Beach, which will result in less flooding in the area during storms

Work replacing the old underground stormwater pipes and constructing a new pumping station on the Kāpiti Coast District Council-owned property at the northern end of Moana Street is nearly finished.

Testing of the pumping station will start in November with intermittent bursts of water pumped out through the new discharge structure installed in the dune area, opposite the Marine Parade/Koromiko Street intersection.

Council’s Stormwater and Coastal Asset Manager Disna Pathirage says the stormwater system will be operational from the time testing starts.

“This new system will increase the capacity of the existing stormwater network and mean there’s much less likelihood of flooding on Moana Street and surrounding properties,” she says.

This project is part of our on-going work to upgrade the district’s stormwater network.

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