Put simply, it is a case of removing some trees and undergrowth, levelling the ground and making the landscape look smart and safe.
But the task being undertaken to remove the threat of slips and tree-falls above the Caltex Hyderabad service station in Napier, which sits beside the southern slopesof Bluff Hill, is anything but simple.
The job, being overseen by contracting firm Aspec, has been more than a month in the planning and preparation -- with part of that preparation being the construction of a 40m scaffolding stairway to provide access for tree fellers from Green Scene as well as a pathway to his driving seat for digger driver Brendan Berkett from Berkett Earthmovers.
His six-tonne excavator had to be lifted by a 40-tonne crane to what had once been a level stretch of soil banking which had been levelled to create an anti-slip area, as well as provide a site for water drainage.
But subsequent slips and tree and scrub growth over the past five years had begun to fill the once flat stretch which overlooks the service station's forecourt, a bulk gas storage cylinder and a car wash. The station's owners recognised there was a risk of slippage or tree falls and called in the experts.
Working on such a site was a first for Mr Berkett, but it wasn't so much the actual hillside-excavating 40m up which bothered him -- it was getting up the stairway.
"I'm not keen on heights," he said. "I've done a lot of jobs, but I have to say nothing quite as crazy as this," he said as his excavator was lifted up on to the hillside stretch. It caused several passersby to stop and watch.
The excavation work was likely to be wrapped up today.
I've done a lot of jobs, but I have to say nothing quite as crazy as this.
Green Scene contractors had been at the site since Monday, removing small trees and undergrowth which had spread across the face, and caused drain-blocking problems. "It's tricky, but this is what we do," foreman Dave Eastwood said.
By yesterday morning the contractors had removed about 40cu m of scrub and branches after mulching. "That equates to about 10 tonnes," Mr Eastwood said, adding they had come across a 5m-high wall of wild blackberry which was "impenetrable".
Yesterday they continued carefully felling overhanging poplars and small pines and roping the debris down the hillside. The work is expected to be wrapped up by the end of the week.
