A response to some simpleton's comment in Der Press:
Hate to disillusion our Renew New Brighton, but there goes yet another example of a complete and utter foobar by, guess who, the CCC. The timeline:
After the 1997 Pier opening (50% privately funded from Pier & Foreshore over 30 years, hard to get more community centred than that), CCC realises the suburb needs a bit of a lift.
In 2002 after a few discussions, the NB Master Plan was released to general approval.
Around that time a lot of property activity happens, as folks realised the potential of the seaside and the views. So they start to plan Development, Building, Cash and New Residents!
Whoa, there! The CCC has omitted to do any Plan Changes! So none (not a single one...) of these development plans ever got off the ground.
CCC finally gets around to Plan Change 27 in (wait for it...) 2009.
By which time the community is polarised (what? new people? with more money? Interlopers! Oppose the Change...). Some of the developers have gone bust, taking with them firms, jobs and livelihoods.
PC 27 passes. Development has a Green Light.
Whoops! The GFC has struck, and there is no mo' money for , oh, a generation or so.
See? That's how to Renew Brighton......simple, eh?
Showing posts with label Brighton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brighton. Show all posts
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Thursday, March 18, 2010
The latest Tsunami
Well, young gullz, we've been and had another Tsunami. Or to be more accurate, a small-t tsunami.
Did anyone on our fair beach actually notice?
I asked old Gaffer Bob, that half-feathered uncle of Aunt Jane's by her half-sister Ethel, but he fell asleep about three squawks into my question. So I guess the answer is No.
Did the police race up and down, furiously sirening and getting the Endangered Inhabitants of those crummy old houses behind the 8-metre dunes, to safety?
Why, no.
Did lots of those odd humans race down to the beach to see what the fuss was all aboot?
Why, yes.
Were any of them sucked out to sea, thrashing and promising to Gaia that they would never be so stoopid again if she'd just wash them right back up?
Why, no.
So it was really a non-event.
Which is extremely predictable, really. Because distant tsunami have never much affected our fair beach, at least the central to northern bits. There's just too much sand out there, too much friction, and no confining bay or sub-sea features. The waves certainly arrived, but compared to the full moon tides as predicted by that funny old bloke Ken Ring, they were nothing. Those full moon tides ran, oh, at least half a metre higher than the tsunami!
But the good folks of Brighton and surrounds have nothing to worry aboot compared to their brethren in the Peninsula Bays and even the corner of the Southshore Spit, Sunmer, Redcliffs and the estuary. Those Spit dwellers can get the waves both ways - the slosh over from the sea as it jams into the corner (look atta map, why don'cha), and the back-slosh from the Estuary, which as you may recall is filling up with sand.
But I digress.
No bad effects.
But it is amusing to watch those silly hunans crying 'look out - the Wave is coming'.
Did anyone on our fair beach actually notice?
I asked old Gaffer Bob, that half-feathered uncle of Aunt Jane's by her half-sister Ethel, but he fell asleep about three squawks into my question. So I guess the answer is No.
Did the police race up and down, furiously sirening and getting the Endangered Inhabitants of those crummy old houses behind the 8-metre dunes, to safety?
Why, no.
Did lots of those odd humans race down to the beach to see what the fuss was all aboot?
Why, yes.
Were any of them sucked out to sea, thrashing and promising to Gaia that they would never be so stoopid again if she'd just wash them right back up?
Why, no.
So it was really a non-event.
Which is extremely predictable, really. Because distant tsunami have never much affected our fair beach, at least the central to northern bits. There's just too much sand out there, too much friction, and no confining bay or sub-sea features. The waves certainly arrived, but compared to the full moon tides as predicted by that funny old bloke Ken Ring, they were nothing. Those full moon tides ran, oh, at least half a metre higher than the tsunami!
But the good folks of Brighton and surrounds have nothing to worry aboot compared to their brethren in the Peninsula Bays and even the corner of the Southshore Spit, Sunmer, Redcliffs and the estuary. Those Spit dwellers can get the waves both ways - the slosh over from the sea as it jams into the corner (look atta map, why don'cha), and the back-slosh from the Estuary, which as you may recall is filling up with sand.
But I digress.
No bad effects.
But it is amusing to watch those silly hunans crying 'look out - the Wave is coming'.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Sand again - connecting the dots
Funny old thing, sand. This old gull started blogging about it in the very first post, and thanks to a flight way up the beach, feels impelled to rattle on some more, on that very same topic.
As young Gullz know, the Waimak River pumps somewhere between 50 and 100,000 cubic metres of sand out into Pegasus Bay each year. This is around the figure Ecanz works to (that's if it actually ever did anything about it, but, like old folks do, why, I'm rambling already). That sand's gotta go somewhere - right?
So there are three basic choices for yer Typical Grain of Sand:
- North
- Out to sea, straight ahead (East)
- South
Yours Truly has argued, convincingly, (well, shure convinced me, anyways) that the majority actually goes South, and ends up doing four things:
- making sandhills even higher
- making the seabed shallower all along the coast
- making the entire beach wider
- scooting round the end of the Brighton Southshore Spit and filling in the Estuary
Obviously, what happens week to week depends on storms, what state the sandhills are in, what various agencies have messed around with in terms of holes on the beach or new planting which traps sand, yada,yada,yada.
But the big picture is plain. More land ahoy!
And now, this old gull, having enjoying a leisurely glide all the way to Brooklands Lagoon and back, has picked up a snippet from a resident of that fair burg. (And what a burg it is! Your faithful scribe had thought of Brooklands as vaguely shack-infested, but blow me down, it's suburbia!)
Oh yes. That snippet.
Seems that the sand used to be dredged out of the Lagoon (which, for all of you non-flying types out there, can be Google Earthed) but that has long since ceased (Ecanz theory tending to the Keep It Natural in this case). And the Lagoon is rapidly silting (or sanding?) up. Quell Surpise, as our French cuzzies say. Causing washes at king tide, uncomfortably close to the front doors of some of the aforesaid non-shacks. According to our Intrepid Ninformant.
So, connecting the Dotz, us wise old gullz can see that:
- the Brooklands Lagoon is filling up at the Waimak Mouth
- the dunes are getting higher where they are constrained
- the Estuary (Heathcote-Avon) is filling up
- the seabed adjacent to the coast and off Sumner is filling up.
Hmmmm. A pattern, wethinks?
A good question to ask Ecanz:
What Are you going to do about all that sand?
Hint: how's about Dredging some of it again? After all, there's a bit of Coastal Property may need some Highering sometime this century, if all the eco-chondraics are right.
As young Gullz know, the Waimak River pumps somewhere between 50 and 100,000 cubic metres of sand out into Pegasus Bay each year. This is around the figure Ecanz works to (that's if it actually ever did anything about it, but, like old folks do, why, I'm rambling already). That sand's gotta go somewhere - right?
So there are three basic choices for yer Typical Grain of Sand:
- North
- Out to sea, straight ahead (East)
- South
Yours Truly has argued, convincingly, (well, shure convinced me, anyways) that the majority actually goes South, and ends up doing four things:
- making sandhills even higher
- making the seabed shallower all along the coast
- making the entire beach wider
- scooting round the end of the Brighton Southshore Spit and filling in the Estuary
Obviously, what happens week to week depends on storms, what state the sandhills are in, what various agencies have messed around with in terms of holes on the beach or new planting which traps sand, yada,yada,yada.
But the big picture is plain. More land ahoy!
And now, this old gull, having enjoying a leisurely glide all the way to Brooklands Lagoon and back, has picked up a snippet from a resident of that fair burg. (And what a burg it is! Your faithful scribe had thought of Brooklands as vaguely shack-infested, but blow me down, it's suburbia!)
Oh yes. That snippet.
Seems that the sand used to be dredged out of the Lagoon (which, for all of you non-flying types out there, can be Google Earthed) but that has long since ceased (Ecanz theory tending to the Keep It Natural in this case). And the Lagoon is rapidly silting (or sanding?) up. Quell Surpise, as our French cuzzies say. Causing washes at king tide, uncomfortably close to the front doors of some of the aforesaid non-shacks. According to our Intrepid Ninformant.
So, connecting the Dotz, us wise old gullz can see that:
- the Brooklands Lagoon is filling up at the Waimak Mouth
- the dunes are getting higher where they are constrained
- the Estuary (Heathcote-Avon) is filling up
- the seabed adjacent to the coast and off Sumner is filling up.
Hmmmm. A pattern, wethinks?
A good question to ask Ecanz:
What Are you going to do about all that sand?
Hint: how's about Dredging some of it again? After all, there's a bit of Coastal Property may need some Highering sometime this century, if all the eco-chondraics are right.
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