Lance Tatham helped make Kāpiti a great place to work and play

Penny Gaylor.

Weekly column by Kāpiti's Greater Wellington Regional Council councillor Penny Gaylor.

I wish to acknowledge the tragic death of our local Wellington Regional Council staff member Lance Tatham.

Lance worked for the last 16 years with the team in the Otaki depot tending to the maintenance of the Ōtaki and Waikanae rivers for the betterment of our environment and to ensure those communities were protected from floods.

The entire regional council family grieve for his death in a car crash last week. Our heartfelt condolences to his widow and whānau.

We will all miss his smiling face and his strong devotion to making Kāpiti a great place to work and play.

We would have seen Lance on our now cancelled Ōtaki River Walkover (scheduled for today), and the Waikanae River Walkover due to take place next month.

Lance, like his workmates, and our volunteers in the rivers' Friends groups, were all devoted to the care and restoration of our local environment.

Lance's great work will be all around us when you walk the wonderful paths of these rivers.

GWRC will host a smaller walkover for each river for a few key interested parties to ensure we comply with our consent conditions. These will be very operational focused, looking at the works that have been done and what is planned for next year.

Repairs to the track drop-outs on the Wainui Stream track began late last week.

After a site inspection to confirm logistics for the project, it has been agreed to repair the most upstream section of track first, this being the one closest to the Wainui Stream Track/Te Ara o Whareroa junction before moving to the smaller downstream site.

During the work sections of track will be closed with detours signposted to other tracks while work is completed and to keep visitors safe.

Signs have been placed on site advising of the works beginning and information is being placed on the GWRC website and Facebook pages.

We are hoping works will be completed very quickly, but as with all outdoor jobs this will be dependent on weather and stream conditions.

For your information the consultation process for the Parks Network Plan is currently under way, you can access this via the following link https://haveyoursay.gw.govt.nz/parksplan

The new Draft Plan sets directions for management of the regional park network over the next 10 years. If you would prefer a hard copy of the document these can be requested from parksplanning@gw.govt.nz and one can be mailed to you.