Focus On | Ashburton
Focus On | South Canterbury
Pre-winter road work under way
The Ashburton District Council has approved an extra $300,000 to spend on roading maintenance during the period leading up to winter – before seasonally inclement weather arrives and impacts road repair work. The money will come from forestry reserves and is part of a planned $2 million injection into the district’s roading repairs programme.
“Stabilised repairs improve the top layer of the existing pavement and can be completed much faster than dig-out repairs.
Council will consult with the community as part of its Annual Plan 2022-23 consultation before using the other $1.7m.
“Stabilising these extra roads now also means that we don’t have to keep patching them over winter to stop them from deteriorating further and they will be in a safer condition,” he says.
Council’s roading maintenance contractor HEB owns a large road stabilising mill machine which has been working in the Selwyn district but is now available to come to Ashburton to join a smaller machine that has been operating here over the last few months. These machines work like a large rotary hoe – milling the top layer of failed road pavement, adding cement to stabilise the milled material, then shaping and compacting the road surface with a few days drying required before chip sealing to complete the repair. Infrastructure Services Group manager, Neil McCann, says the unexpected access to the additional machine meant two stabilising crews would progress the Ashburton district’s stabilisation repairs much quicker.
“Some of the roads earmarked to be repaired using this additional machine include sections of Lismore Mayfield Road, Seafield Road and Beach Road East.” He said the same milling treatment has been successfully used around the Ashburton District this year with 8,481sqm of repairs already having been completed on 20 roads. “Our contractor has been dealing to a good number of potholes already and this extra $300,000 will be put to good use to repair some of our roads earlier than planned.” Information sourced from the Ashburton District Council: www.ashburtondc.govt.nz.
CT
The Green light on Maadi Cup Rowing New Zealand is paving the way for major sporting events to continue in the midst of the pandemic with New Zealand’s largest rowing regatta- The Maadi Cup set to commence on the 28th of March at Lake Ruataniwha in Twizel.
The exciting event is usually yearly. It alternates annually between Lake Karapiro in Cambridge and Lake Ruataniwha in Twizel. Twizel has not been the host of the coveted event since 2018, a staggering four years ago due to the alternating years and the event being cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreaks. The event is expected to bring around 1,400 competitors to the Mackenzie area which is a welcome relief since the region has suffered immensely from the economic impacts of the border’s closures due to Covid-19. Mackenzie District mayor Graham Smith said the regatta would bring “much needed” business to the area. Two years of lock downs means the region has missed out on so much and large events such as these will give the region the boost it has been so desperately waiting for. The persistence, thorough planning and necessary management to meet required government guidelines has helped forge the event through the tricky times of the red-light restrictions where majority of large sporting events have been forced to either postpone or cancel. Rowing New Zealand conducted a study for 130 schools across the country to gauge potential interest for attendance of Maadi Cup at red light. Mark Weathrell says that 108 schools responded and of those 83 percent said
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they would be content with sending interested pupils to the event. It was after those encouraging statistics that the planning went ahead with how exactly to manage the event with slimmed down numbers to ensure it was meeting all requirements and doing all it could to keep attendees safe. The decision was made to restrict numbers based on age categories, with only under 18-year-old, under 17-year-old, and under 16-year-old age groups going ahead at the event. Precautions such as maintaining zones of less than 100 competitors, barring spectators and requiring vaccination will also be strictly in place. Pre-Covid, the event usually drew about 3000 competitors and up to 10000 spectators.
With no allowance for spectators, Weatherall said, Maadi Cup will be livestreamed as well as SKY Sport broadcasting a 2022 Aon Maadi Cup highlights package during the week following the regatta, making sure nobody will miss out on the excitement of the racing. There has been a lot of praise for the event coordinators from schools, competitors and locals of the district who are all excited for the largest school sports event in the Southern Hemisphere to commence. CT
