However, he continues to believe he can ultimately get a groyne at St Clair Beach across the line.
The Dunedin City Council decided this week to carry on with technical investigations of a groyne or groynes and other coastal management approaches identified in the St Clair to St Kilda coastal plan.
An alternative option — pressing ahead with getting resource consent for and constructing a trial groyne — was not pursued.
Mr Radich has consistently asserted reinstating a groyne, or a line of poles planked together, would build up the beach, as he argued had been achieved in the past.
The possibility of a groyne, among other coastal management techniques or priorities, now looks set to be a key matter for debate before the council’s 2024-34 long-term plan is adopted next year.
Mr Radich said the resolution at the council meeting, which he proposed, was not a setback.
"It’s another step along the journey," he said yesterday.
Mr Radich highlighted "active listening" was a prominent theme in his mayoralty campaign last year.
A continuing quest for more information about coastal management approaches attracted a consensus of support at this week’s meeting and no councillor voted against the resolution, which passed with an oral vote.
Mr Radich said he preferred consensus to resolutions passed narrowly.
At the meeting, Cr Steve Walker labelled the option of looking to charge ahead with a trial as being "dead in the water".
Mr Radich did not disagree, in that he accepted it was the option in the staff report the council had not pursued.
"But groynes are not dead in the water," he said.
"Groynes need to be reinstated in the water."
Asked during the election campaign if reinstating a groyne would be a certainty under his mayoralty, Mr Radich said "yes, pretty much".
Initially, a majority of the new council attempted to get permission to reinstate a groyne without getting a resource consent, but the Otago Regional Council did not allow this.
Mr Radich remained convinced this had been the right course and he said it was reasonable to argue the city council should have been allowed to repair remnants of an existing structure.
Now, the council was free to propose whatever style of groyne research showed to be most effective.
