Petition challenges health and safety in Havelock reserves

A petition calling for the Hastings District Council (HDC) to pause the submission process for the Draft Reserves Management Plan (RMP) for the Havelock North Reserves (Tainui, Tanner, Tauroa, Hikanui and Keith Sands Grove) was tabled at the September 8 Council meeting this week.

Submitted by Friends of Tainui Reserve and led by co-ordinator Jessica Maxwell, the petition asks the Council “to obtain a robust, independent health and safety report pertaining to all the users groups and all reserves”.

Maxwell says the 16.45 hectare Tainui Reserve in particular – often considered the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of the Havelock North reserves and the location of the historic Hikanui Pā  – has become an, “unregulated, unmonitored, ‘Ride-Where-You-Like’ mountain bike playground to the detriment of the 90% plus other users”. She claims this is “sanctioned by Council leaders and personnel whose mates are mountain bikers”.

Responding to the petition prior to the Council meeting, Louise Stettner, Manager of the Council’s Democracy & Governance Services wrote to Maxwell on 24 August stating that “the Reserves Act 1977 does not specify that a health and safety report is required to prepare Reserve Management Plans”. She referred Maxwell to two plans commissioned by HDC and taken into consideration by Council when preparing the 2022 Draft RMP plans. These are ‘Tainui and Hikanui Reserves Mountain Bike Track Safety Audit’ – Peak Safety, November 2019 and ‘Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) Audit of the Havelock North Reserves’, May 2022, Boffa Miskell.

But Maxwell says the Mountain Bike Track Safety Audit is limited solely to the mountain bike track and shared track to exit Tainui Reserve. “It doesn’t cover the walking tracks, while the CPTED focuses on crime.” 

She says the bottom line is that the mountain bikers are uncontrollable in the reserves. “That’s why we want a full health and safety report.”

She points out the Reserves Act came into force in 1977, before mountain biking was a big sport in New Zealand, so the petition also asks Council to obtain an external legal opinion on the lawfulness of the draft RMP (see the petition ‘prayer’ at the end of this article).

Former HDC councillor for the Heretaunga Ward, Rod Heaps, was responsible for the Parks and Reserve portfolio when provision for one Grade 3 mountain bike track in Tainui was approved.

“It was never properly consulted,” he says, “but it passed and I don’t think anyone, neither the Council nor the public, realised what the implications of it would be.”

In July 2019, HDC announced that the 750m downhill mountain bike track at Tainui Reserve would be completed with signs to identify the tracks for mountain bikers and walkers.

“Council put up notices where bikers should go, but they also put up a map of potential mountain bike tracks. The bikers looked at that and made their own tracks and Council couldn’t monitor that. Conflict developed between bikers and walkers, and people were verbally and physically abused.”

“The least the Council could do is get an expert in, and not just any authority, to look at the health and safety of having both bikers and walkers in that park, plus the need to protect the significant Hikanui Pā site.

“In my mind the reserves should be bike free,” he says. “There are plenty of other places for bikers – such as Te Mata Park. They should never have been allowed into Tainui in the first place.”

Interestingly, the Council’s 2022 Draft RMP for which submissions closed on 7 September states that, “The community consultation process identified support of continued use of the Havelock North reserves for recreational purposes, including mountain biking”. 

The new 2022 draft RMP further proposes the construction of an uphill mountain bike track next to the downhill mountain bike track in the western valley of Tainui Reserve, and that this will be separate from the walking tracks. Both biking tracks would connect to Hikanui Drive via the part of the reserve containing the reservoirs, avoiding impacts on the ancient Hikanui Pā area, which will be developed in consultation with mana whenua.

The plan proposes the removal of informal bike jumps at the Hikanui entrance with signage and education deterring future bikers from straying onto walking tracks.

Sally Anderson, who signed the petition and has lived with her family in Tanner Street since 1974, walks in the reserve most days. She says, “It is hard talking to a glossy Draft Plan which presents a utopia, when in practice on the ground there hasn’t been a focus on walkers’ safety and getting things right for walkers first.”

The recipient of verbal abuse from an adult mountain biker in Tainui Reserve during the first lockdown, Anderson says she regularly sees bike tyre marks and skids all over Tainui’s walking tracks. “Unless the mountain bike tracks are fenced off, how will they be policed?”

One person BayBuzz met in Tainui Reserve, who is acutely aware of the need to feel safe when walking, is 30-year-old Seth Adams who exercises his dog Teddy there. Seth was in a major car accident ten years ago and still suffers from a traumatic brain injury and partial paralysis on his left side. He walks with the help of a stick and leg bracing.

Tainui Reserve is a special place for Seth where he can take his time and relax. And that’s why he signed the petition calling for a pause to the submission process.

“I don’t want any bikers in the park,” he says. “They rob everyone else of a peaceful walk.”

Stettner’s letter of 24 August further encouraged Maxwell and Friends of Tainui Reserve to make a submission to the Draft RMP process identifying their concerns and speaking to their submission at the subsequent hearing.

Submissions are now closed, and she says “it is intended that Council will hear and make decisions on submissions received in December 2022, after which time the Reserve Management Plan will be adopted”.

Petition to Hastings District Council from Friends of Tainui Reserve:

We, the undersigned, petition the elected Hastings District Council to ‘pause’ the submission process for the Draft Reserve Management Plan for Tainui, Tanner, Tauroa, Hikanui and Keith Sands Grove Reserves, as the Draft RMP is an incomplete document, in that it does not include a crucial Health and Safety Report.

The Draft RMP and submission process appear unsafe and unsatisfactory, as the Draft RMP appears to breach the Reserves Act, the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014 and Consolidated Bylaw 2.2.1.

We petition the Council to obtain a robust, independent Health and Safety Report, pertaining to all user groups and all reserves and obtain an external legal opinion to determine if the Draft RMP complies with or breaches the above Acts and Bylaw. For transparency, this information should be made public, so that people can make informed submissions.

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