RiverLink shifts up a gear

After several years of planning and preliminary design, work on Lower Hutt's most ambitious transformation project is starting to ramp-up.

RiverLink recently recruited a project director to oversee and coordinate the project, the resource consent process is underway, and ground investigations along the river banks to provide the data critical for the design of stop banks, bridges and other structures have begun.

RiverLink will strengthen the flood defenses of central Lower Hutt "upgrading the protection of more than $2 billion worth of homes and business " and improve transport links. The development of a riverside promenade is projected to attract 2600 new residents and 2700 workers to the central city, and is described by one economist as "the switch" that will reinvigorate the central city.

RiverLink is a partnership between Greater Wellington Regional Council, Hutt City Council and the NZ Transport Agency.      

Recently appointed RiverLink Project Director Martin White has three decades experience leading urban regeneration, economic development and urban planning projects in Wales, England and New Zealand.

He says RiverLink is a highly complex project entering an important phase.   

"For many reasons, RiverLink is crucial to the people of Lower Hutt. We have one opportunity to get such a large scale and highly-detailed project right, so the consents and investigation work currently underway is a critical part of the project.    

Ground investigations - including drilling and trenching - have begun along both sides of the river. The data collected will be fundamental to the design of the new stop banks, a proposed pedestrian and cycle bridge and the buildings that will line the promenade. It will also ensure that construction will not affect the Waiwhetu Aquifer.

Meanwhile, RiverLink has appointed Isthmus, Tonkin+Taylor, GHD and Holmes Consulting to take RiverLink through the consenting process. Isthmus was involved in the design of the award-winning New Plymouth Coastal Walkway - a project with strong similarities to RiverLink's promenade.

Hutt City Council also recently published its Central City Transformation Plan, which provides a detailed guide to how the central city could be developed and reinvigorated with the promenade as its cornerstone.

RiverLink video url is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv5KSSe1u4w