Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Rebuilding Hawke’s Bay orchards and vineyards, one fencepost at a time

Hawkes Bay Today
17 Dec, 2023 10:19 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save
    Share this article
Almost a year after the devastating floods bought on by Cyclone Gabrielle a church has been reborn. Eskdale Church hosted it's first service carol singing since being inundated with flood water and silt. Video / Warren Buckland

By Lauren Crimp-RNZ


Almost 12,500 broken orchard and vineyard fenceposts ripped from the ground during Cyclone Gabrielle have found new homes in farms across Hawke’s Bay.

But they are just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of posts still to sort through, and funding is becoming an issue.

Marlborough-based company Repost has been picking up broken vineyard posts, removing nails, clips and plastic, cutting them to size and bundling them up ready for reuse.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

After the cyclone, Repost owner Greg Coppell took a call from the regional council asking for help. He sent his foreman north to oversee operations, and recruited more staff to start picking the posts out from massive piles of silt and debris.

“Currently in Hawke’s Bay we are sorting through wire, trees and CCA posts, plastics, sheds, and everything else you can imagine,” Coppell said.

But the 12,400 posts that had so far been spruced up and dished out were just the tip of the iceberg.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

“There’s hundreds of thousands of posts, [and] what we’ve done so far, we’re pretty much only looking at two properties,” he said.

“There’s a hell of a lot more work to do, and with the uncertainty at the moment around funding, everybody’s in limbo and feeling quite anxious about what the future holds really.”

That funding was from the government, and went to the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council silt recovery and waste taskforce (which then funded Repost).

It had so far received $130 million - but the job was only half done, and there was no guarantee of more money.

Coppell was adamant the work had to continue.

“It definitely wasn’t part of our plan or model, but it’s really rewarding and we’re really pleased to be there. We’re doing our best, that’s for sure.”

And Hawke’s Bay farmers were thankful.

Otāne farmer Andrew Wilson lost all 5km of his fencing during the cyclone.

“I had no fences, no boundary fences, no floodgates, so I had to sell all my livestock,” Wilson said.

“Federated Farmers turned up with a tractor and four guys and some volunteers and did my boundary fences, which was massive, because it sort of got me going.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

“You could see an end, you could see it would get cleaned up.”

After that, he became a ‘depot’ for the Repost recycled posts - they were delivered to his farm, where other farmers could come and collect them.

“We had farmers come in who’ve got say 400 hectares up the coast, and they’ve lost 45 or 50 hectares in slips,” he said.

“They can’t put the fences back where they were because the slips are there and they’re still moving.”

Traditional fencing was about $20,000 per kilometre so the money was “enormous”, he said.

“They’ve been saying to me look, it’s such a blessing to get these posts.”

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

There were sustainability benefits, too, taskforce lead Darren de Klerk said.

“The taskforce’s partnership with Repost has given us the ability to repurpose these posts into sustainable fencing to be reused in the community here.

“It’s great to see the amount of useful wood we’ve been able to redirect from landfill.”

It also cut costs, he said - it was about $4.50 for Repost’s work, versus about $19 to dispose one post at landfill.

Save
    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Lifestyle

Record-breaking win: Hawke's Bay brewery shines with three top trophies

Hawkes Bay Today

Five injured, one critically, in Hawke's Bay crash - two cut from vehicle

Hawkes Bay Today

Family plan hīkoi as they seek justice for slain Napier teenager


Sponsored

Kiss cams and passion cohorts: how brands get famous in culture

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Record-breaking win: Hawke's Bay brewery shines with three top trophies
Lifestyle

Record-breaking win: Hawke's Bay brewery shines with three top trophies

Brave Brewing Co won three of 18 categories at the beer awards.

03 Aug 01:37 AM
Five injured, one critically, in Hawke's Bay crash - two cut from vehicle
Hawkes Bay Today

Five injured, one critically, in Hawke's Bay crash - two cut from vehicle

02 Aug 10:48 PM
Family plan hīkoi as they seek justice for slain Napier teenager
Hawkes Bay Today

Family plan hīkoi as they seek justice for slain Napier teenager

02 Aug 05:00 AM


Kiss cams and passion cohorts: how brands get famous in culture
Sponsored

Kiss cams and passion cohorts: how brands get famous in culture

01 Aug 12:26 AM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP