West Coast Council ‘orphan asset’ list to be identified

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

From local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:

The West Coast Regional Council is still grappling with how to identify 'orphan assets'.

Many of the assets refer to bridge protection work or stopbanks built by different administrations, including the former Westland Catchment Board before the regional council was formed in 1989, or historically by other authorities including the former roads boards.

The Westport floods of 2021 brought the issue to the surface, especially with the ownership of historic river training works at Organs Island on the Buller River, upstream of Westport township.

In Cobden, the seawall built along Domett Esplanade in 1969 is still a matter of contention, while record floods at Reefton last winter also highlighted the problem of 'orphan assets'.

In August, former councillor Laura Coll told the Risk and Assurance Committee meeting that clarifying the ownership and assessing the state of the protection banks on the true right bank of the Inangahua River at Reefton was urgent after flooding last year.

Significant flooding at Reefton about 40 years ago had prompted the existing protection work but there was a local assumption the council was responsible for maintaining the stopbanks, despite there being no local rating district.

Coll-McLaughlin urged the council to begin to identify all the 'orphan assets' around the region, as it risked credibility issues if it had no plan or had not taken any steps to clarify ownership.

Acting corporate services manager Marc Ferguson told the Risk and Assurance Committee this week there was as yet uncertainty about the status of a list of those assets.

It had apparently been compiled internally by a former staff member, who left the council in November.

Committee chairperson Cr Frank Dooley said it was a "black hole" as was seen with Organ's Island.

"It's up to us as the responsible organisation within our region for flood protection to get it sorted," he said.

The question was, had the list been prepared?

Cr Brett Cummings suggested it might be up to councillors themselves to use their historic knowledge to come up with a list. The ownership of some
assets had been disputed, which was the reason he brought it up, with numerous examples in the region.

For example, near the Punakaiki River mouth a rockwall protecting State Highway 6 had been built in the past, and it had been having a knock-on erosion effect on the nearby shoreline, but the NZ Transport Agency "don't want anything to do with it".

Cummings said there were probably a lot of people who assumed some assets were the regional council's where in fact they were not.


*Public interest journalism funded through NZ On Air