A massive plan to extend Lyttelton Port in Christchurch has reached a milestone.
The port company has applied for consent to more than double the size of the reclamation area, and rubble from the Christchurch earthquake is making it possible.
Trucks and excavators are working to turn the ocean into usable land, dropping rubble into seven metres of water and slowly building it up.
"The fill to date has come from earthquake damaged buildings, really the demolition of the city," Lyttelton Port Company CEO Peter Davie says.
The Port has applied for consent from Environment Canterbury to extend its current 10-hectare reclamation to 34 hectares.
The scale is massive - it takes 180,000 cubic metres of material to fill in a single hectare.
It will allow operations to shift to the east, opening up the marina for wider public use.
"What we're going to build is a floating marina and a walkway, and parking and all the amenities," Mr Davie says.
"And then there's lots of land for development. We'd like to see a coffee shop, maybe a wine bar down there."
The $20 million project has been welcomed, albeit somewhat apprehensively, by Lyttelton residents.
Tasman Young, of the local community association, is hoping locals will get a say in the process.
"I'd like to think I'd wander down every morning, have a cup of coffee... It'd be great. It's positive."
Newshub.
