Gore's Hilbre Avenue water tower, a fixture on the town's skyline since 1948, has been demolished, completing a major stage of the Gore District Council's overhaul of the town's water supply.

The concrete tower came down on 9 October after standing for more than 78 years. The council has released timelapse footage of the demolition.

Its removal followed the earlier clearance of the former treatment building, the old reservoir and contaminated materials from the Hilbre Avenue site.

Gore District Mayor Ben Bell said the tower had been a familiar feature of the town for generations. Its demolition was "an important step in delivering a safer, more resilient and modern water supply network for our community", he said.

Council structural asset engineer Terry Trotter said the tower "had reached the end of its useful life", and that considerable planning had gone into the project because of the age and condition of the structures on the site.

He described the demolition as an important milestone for the council's wider water infrastructure programme.

Concrete to be reused

The demolished concrete is being crushed on site and will be reused in the foundations of a new reservoir to be built at Hilbre Avenue.

Crushing is expected to take about a week. Site fencing stays in place and the footpath alongside the site remains closed until the work is finished.

Meeting drinking water standards

The Hilbre Avenue redevelopment is part of a wider upgrade designed to bring Gore's water supply up to the national drinking water standards enforced by Taumata Arowai, the water services regulator that took over the role from the Ministry of Health in 2021.

Last year the council laid new pipelines beneath the Mataura River, linking the Jacobstown and Coopers wells to the new East Gore water treatment plant and to the Hilbre Avenue site.

Councillors had earlier voted to demolish the disused tower rather than try to keep it, and the demolition was carried out alongside the removal of contaminated material from the site.

Water towers like Gore's were built to store treated water at height so that gravity could maintain pressure in the pipes below. Modern networks rely instead on pumps and ground-level reservoirs, which is what the Hilbre Avenue site will now hold.

Built in 1948, in the years immediately after the Second World War, the tower outlasted the treatment plant and reservoir it once served, and its departure leaves the site clear for the new reservoir.

The council is separately consulting ratepayers on a review of how rates are shared across the Gore District. Submissions on the rates review close at 5pm on 18 November, with hearings scheduled for 3 and 4 December and a decision due on 15 December.