A feasibility study has been completed which could see the water flow restored to Foxton's river loop, according to Save our River Trust which held a public meeting last weekend to update the community on its progress.
Progress on restoring the flow to the Manawatu River Loop at Foxton was highlighted at a public meeting on Sunday.
Save our River Trust (SoRT) spoke to interested parties at the Manawatu College Hall about the history of the loop and the progress it had made following a resource consent
granted to the organisation in November 2016 to restore, beautify and undertake maintenance works on the loop by the Foxton town frontage.
The next phase is to increase the water flow, volume and velocity by dredging out the original river channel. It's a short-term solution as sediment will build up every time the Moutua floodgates open, until a permanent solution is found to restore the continuous river flow into the loop. However, a feasibility study has been completed and an engineering solution proposed that will accomplish this.
SoRT is intending to ask the Government to honour its undertakingof the 1940s and 50s to restore the heath of the river at Foxton.
Horizons Regional councillor Colleen Sheldon spoke at the meeting and said for many years Foxton residents and visitors had watched the degradation of the waterway as progressive governments and councils put it in the "too hard basket".
