Road remains partly closed

Rocks and debris block  a section of a lane on Fruitgrowers Rd, near Clyde, yesterday. Photo by...
Rocks and debris block a section of a lane on Fruitgrowers Rd, near Clyde, yesterday. Photo by Leith Huffadine
A report on Fruitgrowers Rd, near Clyde, which was partly blocked by a landslip last October, will be presented to the Central Otago District Council roading committee next month.

Options for repairing or managing the road, which has been open with one lane since the end of 2013, will be outlined in the report.

Council roading manager Julie Muir said no work had been done because the road was not an issue that would have been addressed by the end of the past financial year and needed to be timed with other works.

Nor had the council recently received any feedback regarding the continuing closure of one lane.

Ms Muir said she could not comment on how long it might take for any action or when the road would be completely opened, as it depended on what councillors decided.

If the selected option required additional funding, it could make the process slower.

''We have had some investigations done. At the moment we have been monitoring it [the landslip] and there has not been any movement recently.

''Our contractor goes and has a look at that every now and then to see if there has been any change, and Contact [Energy, which operates the nearby Clyde Dam] keeps an eye on it every now and then.''

Dunstan Rowing Club president Jacqui van Dam said the club, which is at the end of Fruitgrowers Rd, would ''love'' to see the road fixed.

The road is the only access to the club's headquarters, on the shore of Lake Dunstan.

''When we go to take our boat trailers in and out it's very difficult ... For people towing boat trailers it's not very safe, especially when you add up what all the gear is worth if something happens.''

Ms van Dam said the club had not contacted the council with its concerns, but would like to see the road ''tidied up'' in the next month or two.

Ms Muir said the council would contact stakeholders to gather input when it was writing the report on options for the road.

Last October, Ms Muir said there had been no recorded earthquakes in the area which could have caused the slip, which had appeared to be a relatively shallow but unstable mass.

Power lines at the site were moved or buried by Delta staff last year.

leith.huffadine@odt.co.nz

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