A barrier fence will be added to a new Ashburton playground after a resident raised fears about children playing right next to a stormwater drainage pond.
Ashburton District Council confirmed a barrier fence will be installed at Proctor Park, in Tinwald, as investigations continue into the swale’s drainage issues.
Council infrastructure and open spaces group manager Neil McCann said a 1.2 or 1.5m high pool fence will be installed “as soon as possible”.
Local Peter King had raised concerns that a child could drown at the playground, built just metres from stormwater drainage.
He said the new fence was an “excellent result”.
“They have acknowledged the issue, and at least they have done something about it.”
Mayor Neil Brown recalled the stormwater playground danger as a ‘I told you so moment’.
The situation was discussed at the council’s three waters committee on June 25 where Brown and councillor Carolyn Cameron recalled a site visit before the new playground was built.
Councillors agreed to the location after being told “kids would enjoy running in and out of the swale and playing on their bikes”, Cameron said.
“Now we are going to fence it”.
Brown also recalled the onsite meeting and said councillors had raised concerns about the playground placement.
“It’s sort of ‘I told you so’, but others knew better, and this is what we now have.”
Council chief executive Hamish Riach said installing a barrier fence is “the quickest and easiest” solution to the risk, which they did not carefully foresee.
He said there are a lot of water bodies in New Zealand that were not fenced, but the issue at Proctor Park was the proximity to the playground.
Creating a barrier in this instance makes sense to reduce the risk, he said.
McCann pointed to a similar case at the Braebrook playground, which was next to a duck pond, without a fence, but had planting as a barrier.
He said there was not enough space for planting at Proctor Park.
Councillor Richard Wilson said the nearby open stockwater race, the stormwater is pumped in to, posed a greater drowning risk “than a low batted pond” and questioned the council paying for a fence.
“Are we better to shut the playground until (the water level) drops?”.
Councillor Rob Mackle said it may be inconvenient to fence it, but it was a necessary safety measure.
“Water drains away in a day or so, (but) it only takes a few minutes for a child to drown.”
Water services manager Ulrich Glasner said stormwater swales should mainly be dry, as they are not retention ponds, but Proctor Park is not draining as quickly as intended due to the high ground levels.
The pumping regime at the Proctor Park swales needs to be investigated, as well as how pumping into the nearby stockwater race impacts downstream on the network, he said.
Wilson said there is the issue of the council exiting management of the stockwater network by July 2027 and how the pumping would be handled in future.
Asset manager Andy Guthrie said that, depending on the outcome of the stockwater exit plan, the water could be pumped a little further to Lagmhor Creek.
