17 Oct 2025

Price to fix town stopbanks at 'catastrophic risk of failure' doubles

5:33 am on 17 October 2025
Flooding at Spring Creek on 12 April 2024. After the Wairau River peaked, the Marlborough Civil Defence withdrew an evacuation notice for around 70 households. The Wairau River from the Ferry Road Bridge.

Wairau River in flood at Spring Creek, April 2024: The stopbanks are at "catastrophic risk of failure", and won't be fixed until at least 2027. Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee

The cost to fix stopbanks protecting Spring Creek township near Blenheim has more than doubled, with at least half the $22.5 million price now to be covered by the government.

For the last two years, Spring Creek residents have been told to be prepared to leave their homes during heavy rain, due to the risk the compromised stopbanks could give way in a flood.

Cracks first appeared in one of the stopbanks after the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake and then in the other after flooding in July 2021.

  • Cracks in Marlborough Spring Creek stopbanks at least a metre deep
  • Minister for Regional Development Shane Jones has announced $10.2 million will go toward the project from the regional infrastructure fund as part of a $97m investment in flood resilience projects.

    Last May, residents were told at a community meeting of the Marlborough District Council's $8.7 million plan to repair the stopbanks, using 39,000 tonnes of rock, with a completion date of June 2027.

    Council rivers and drainage engineering manager Andy White said further investigation revealing the extent of the damage and deepening of the river channel during a flood in July has meant a more comprehensive design, at a cost of $22.5m, is needed to protect the township of 600 people, which lies between State Highway 1 and the Wairau River.

    It will require building a new stopbank within the river's channel, higher than the previous design with about double the amount of rock previously needed.

    He first flagged that the banks were at "catastrophic risk of failure" in a report to council last year.

    Since then, two precautionary evacuation orders have been made for parts of Spring Creek during heavy rain, when the river reaches 4000 cumecs [cubic metres per second] and rising. The first evacuation order in April last year was cancelled when the forecast rain didn't eventuate as expected. In June, 60 homes were asked to evacuate during heavy rain.

    Marlborough District Council rivers and drainage engineering manager Andy White told residents that topping up the stopbanks was not a suitable fix – as they were already showing signs of cracking and that could cause them to deteriorate further.

    Andy White (centre) speaking to residents about the stopbanks at an earlier public meeting last year. Photo: Supplied / Marlborough District Council

    White said residents had questioned last year why work could not get underway sooner and the council had chosen to bring forward enabling works to clear out gravel that had built up on an inside bend of the river, opening up the river channel.

    The work cost $6m, with $3.6m from the Regional lnfrastructure Fund, and White said without that work, the bank would have been destroyed by the most recent flood in June.

    Rock work will begin in the river in January and the stopbank is due to be complete in June 2027.

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