· Cafes, restaurants and community gathering places along the river.
· Including permanently moored buildings on floating caissons, boatshed-like buildings on stilts and/or floating barges or replica heritage paddle steamers like the ‘Avon’ and ‘Maid of the Avon’ that used to ply the river in the 19th Century.
Considerations:
· Barges/paddle steamers would need to be low enough to navigate under bridges or restrict activities to stretches between bridges once located on the river.
· Considerable tourism potential.
· Could also provide important community meeting places.
· Must be able to sustain large variations in river levels including tides and floodwaters.
· Consider siting on a new inlet on the inner bend at Avondale – the additional feature could provide increased edge habitat for inanga (whitebait) spawning and increased amenity for a café setting that wouldn’t interfere with river navigation.
· Needs to be engineered to endure lateral spread at the river edge.
· Public safety near the rivers edge needs consideration.
· Potential navigation hazard if a permanent structure on the main river channel.
