Slip takes out front yard of newly-built Lyttelton home

Friday, 2 May 2025

A slip has washed away the front of a newly built home’s property and consumed a Lyttelton road.

A large part of the Cressy Tce embankment fell under the heavy rainfall on Thursday evening.

Neighbours said its occupants had been building the home for 18 months and recently moved in. They were forced to evacuate.

The slip’s pile of dirt and debris included poles and fencing. It stopped just before falling onto a home beneath the road.

It blocked vehicles from travelling past, although a brave postie and a couple of dog walkers trudged across it.

“Everybody on Cressy gets one of those at one time or another,” said a neighbour named Duncan, who only gave his first name.

The back of Duncan’s home, which he has owned for 25 years, was “smashed” by a slip in 2017 and another neighbour, Fiona, said the front of her property gave way under heavy rain two years ago.

Duncan said the family building the new home had “done a lot of work” putting in retaining walls to protect the home, but this slip proved too strong.

Fiona said the rain had been “torrential” in the area and was the “heaviest rain we've had for a long time”.

But residents were “used to it” she said.

A former elderly neighbour had previously told her the road had worn down about 1 metre during his lifetime.

She said the “not great” land was susceptible to slips under heavy rain. “The land is changing all the time.”