Mosgiel-Taieri Community Board chairman Andrew Simms says local residents and fellow board members are concerned about the lack of progress in maintaining the Silver Stream.
Mr Simms said he believed the Otago Regional Council allocated $800,000 for work to repair collapsed banks and silt build-up in the stream "which in the scope of what councils do is not a massive amount of money".
He said the work in the Silver Stream was supposed to be completed by now and he was concerned that it had been delayed.
"They told us that we would see diggers this year, this summer. Well, the summer has been and gone and we haven’t seen diggers."
Mr Simms said the reduced capacity of the stream to manage potential flood events because of the buildup of silt as well as collapsed banks meant instead of the stream being able to function at the optimum capacity of managing flood events every 50 years, it was reduced to every 20 years.
"These flood protection assets are supposed to be maintained to protect the houses and the assets that we have got."
The design of the Silver Stream is supposed to protect Mosgiel from flooding, but if the drainage pathway is blocked because of sediment buildup and reduced maintenance of the banks, the ability of the stream to prevent flood incidences is reduced.
Mr Simms questioned why the ORC was not using an emergency fund of about $200,000 to speed up flood mitigation in the Silver Stream.
Flooding in Hawke’s Bay last year highlighted extreme events did sometimes happen, he said.
"After that event in Hawke’s Bay, people would say to us we can’t sleep at night when we hear the rain on the roof, thinking is this our time, you know."
The regional council was unable to respond by deadline.
