Better understanding of how Wainui Beach works to be shared at meeting

A public meeting to share what has been learnt about the Wainui Beach coastal environment will be held at Wainui Surf Club on Wednesday 5 December at 6pm.

Gisborne District Council has been working with a group of people interested in the future management of Wainui Beach. The group represent a number of interests including environmental, tangata whenua, beach front residents and surfers.

With help from beach experts Dr Amber Dunn and Richard Reinen-Hamill, Council staff and the group have been going over reports and research about the beach. Together they have come to an understanding on how Wainui Beach works and that both storm-based and long-term erosion are affecting the beach. They have also looked at the current anti-erosion infrastructure and concluded that its effectiveness is relatively limited.

This shared understanding will underpin the next stage of developing a Wainui Beach Management Plan. Time frames for the plan - short term 0 -20 years, medium term 20 - 50 years and long term 50 to 100 years are being discussed.

We have made good progress on this project and want to share what we have learnt, says project manager Kevin Strongman. “We had good turnouts to previous meetings about the process we would use to ensure all relevant views were represented when developing this plan. The Key Stakeholder Forum came out of that. We made a commitment to report back on what we found out to the wider community. That is what Wednesday is all about. We are at the stage now where we are assessing a number of possible solutions for the issues faced at Wainui. These possible solutions will be identified at the meeting.”

The Wainui Beach Management Strategy is specifically about the Wainui/Okitu coastal environment, the hazards it faces and how those hazards should be managed. Erosion, foredune protection and tsunami risk will be addressed by the plan. The quality of water in the Wainui and Hanamatua Streams, managing stormwater and septic tanks, and the impacts of subdivision are issues of interest for Wainui residents but they are not part of the strategy.

A number of reports have been received about the Wainui coastal environment and these can be found on Council’s website along with a summary of their content. http://www.gdc.govt.nz/wainui-beach-management-strategy/.

ENDS

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