“But the fact that we’ve had this very negative impact on the community, we really must still focus on the fact that there are a lot of good things coming out of that.”
He says there’s one worker on the Marainanga Gorge who started off just spotting - keeping an eye out for safety - while work was going on, which is a job anyone can do.
“Now seven months later and he’s rolling out some geotextile.”
Operators are also getting experience in stuff they would not normally do.
Working on the gorge hasn’t been without its challenges.
Allingham says he was out there a while ago and then two weeks later went out again and the amount of progress that had been made was excellent. But then a dropout happened about 1 km up the road from where they had been working.
“Now we’ve got another unstable section of road.”
He says there are also others appearing, which is holding things up.
“When you have the instability and the movement happens, and you have a dropout, it takes a while for those areas to settle back down. That is the environment we’re currently dealing in.”
Allingham says Tararua District Council has a couple of things that most other councils do not.
“The way we can work in the Alliance is we have the ability to change very quickly. When you’re dealing with a more formal contract arrangement it can take a bit more time to do things.”
One of the things the Alliance staff have come up with is a prioritisation matrix, or a way to triage works as things are happening in real-time, allowing them to add factors that can raise or drop other jobs in terms of their priority.
Allingham says with things going for a while now, “this is where the hard yards start coming in.”
“It’s easy to be really positive in the event itself and when you’re dealing with something when you’re shovelling, you’ve got that strength that comes with it, but that doesn’t last forever.”
He says the great thing is that the councillors and community groups are aware of that and are taking proactive measures to try and lift spirits a bit.
There are still challenges, such as Rakaiatai Rd, where the bridge washed away in the flooding, forcing at least one property owner to use a boat to get across the Manawatū River.
While a pedestrian bridge was able to be put in, it was soon lost in another weather event.
The council is working on exploring options including the possibility of a Bailey bridge.
Allingham says they can’t not do something because it might rain and there might be more damage coming.
“You have to be aware that some of the stuff we do, we will lose it again. We’ll have to go back and replace it.
“Roads will be opened and then closed. There will be this cycle for a period of time, but the gaps between the cycles will get bigger and bigger. Those gaps will just slowly return back to normality.”
There were still some areas of concern, such as Otanga Rd.
Allingham says there has been an issue where locals have been accessing roads that have been closed.
“If you go through a road-closed area, you have an accident and you can’t call someone, no one’s coming through a road closed to find you.
“The reality is if a road is closed, it’s closed for a reason. We’re trying to be a lot more vigilant with our signage.”
For those feeling a bit frustrated with what seems to be slow progress, Allingham says people need to be aware that the workers are doing the best that they can and at times people’s priorities might not be the priority for the whole district.
