Rakaia Salmon Site Enhancement Project
The Rakaia Salmon Site on State Highway 1 is used by local residents and has become a busy place to stop for visitors passing through the district. The site is being enhanced to cope with increasing demand, high usage of toilets, and to improve the visual appearance through additional landscaping. This project aims to work with the community to improve the usability and appearance of the Site.
What stage is this project at?
Key feature | Stage |
New toilets | The existing toilets have now been replaced with a new ten-pan toilet block that provides wheelchair access, an external row of hand basins, a drinking fountain, and associated entrance paths with bollards |
Rubbish bins | Additional rubbish bins have been installed |
Pathways and lighting | New paths are constructed and have created a much more useable space, particularly during the wetter weather when there is now dry foot access to the salmon and the playgrounds. Bollard lighting along the main path is proposed but has been delayed due to Covid-19. There are also new lights on order for around the salmon sculpture |
Additional seating | 6 new seats to be installed around the site and 4 new picnic tables are in place |
Signage detailing Rakaia’s history | Interpretation panels detailing the history of Rakaia are well underway with the provision of much information provided by the Rakaia Lions. These panels should be installed in the next couple of months |
Playground equipment | The new playground area has had some of the equipment installed (swings, slide, see saws) and more climbing structures will be added in November. This has been delayed due to Covid-19. Once this is complete the site will have a great selection of play equipment suited to users of all ages |
Landscaping | Planting is complete apart from the final area by the new playground which will go in once all the equipment is in place |
Fencing and parking | The existing boundary fence along SH1 is to be refreshed. The new car park behind the toilet block is complete and will provide much needed additional parking |
Funding
At the end of 2018/19 we applied to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment – Tourism Infrastructure Fund for replacement toilets at the Rakaia Salmon site. This application was successful, and we were granted $739,945 for this work. The Rakaia Lions are generously contributing $20,000 towards this project and the remaining $198,000 will be funded from existing Council budgets that had been ring-fenced for upgrades in Rakaia’s open spaces.