Peter King from Ashburton fears a child will drown at a Tinwald playground built metres from stormwater drainage.
The Ashburton District council says it is working on a solution.
King said he's not one to usually make waves, but something has to be done.
“I’d rather speak up before something tragic happens.”
He said after about 130mm of rainfall in early June, two swales at the site were still full early last week, posing a drowning risk.
The Proctor Park playground opened in December.
It replaced Grove Street Park, which closed in 2022 to make way for construction of a new road, an extension of Catherine St, for the Ashbury Grove subdivision.
The closure and positioning of the new park was part of a district council public consultation process in 2021.
“It’s disgusting this was allowed. Putting it right next to a playground, where was their head at?
Infrastructure and open spaces general manager Neil McCann confirmed there was no legal requirement to fence the stormwater facilities.
“But it’s something we could look at as part of our investigation into improving the operation of the Proctor Park swale,’’ McCann said.
The maximum water level of the pond could get to about 1.5m after heavy rain, but most of the time it was dry.
“We are investigating how to better address the drainage issue with Proctor Park, which is related to the current high groundwater.”
The swale needed to be drained by a pump after a big rain event and a contractor managed to lower the water level last week
“The location of all infrastructure was considered as part of the planning and engineering process approval and under normal circumstances, these stormwater attenuation and treatment areas (swales) are compatible with other green space uses such as playgrounds.
“However, due to higher than anticipated groundwater levels, this particular swale is reliant on a pump system to empty it following a large rainfall event. Our contractor would usually check and activate the pump straight after such an event.’’
LDR is local body journalism cofunded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
