Dispute over a boat launching site north of Nelson is no closer to being resolved, years after it first came to a head, with council still “assessing options” 18 months after saying they needed to find a definitive way forward.
The site at Delaware Bay Estuary has long been a launching area for sea-goers, as a safer alternative than nearby Cable Bay, but is also an ecological and culturally significant site for local iwi.
According to the Nelson Resource Management Plan it is not recognised as an official launch site.
Driving is not permitted on an estuary of foreshore under the plan unless at a designated launching area, or if a resource consent allows.
However, Nelson City Council had not enforced this rule at the Maori Pa Rd site for almost 20 years, until 2019.
A spokesperson for Delaware Bay Access Group, which was set up on behalf of recreational boat users to ensure continued access to the area, says the site had always been a recognised legal launch ramp.
That was until they say council unlawfully removed it without due process by not including it in the resource management plan along with Nelson’s other sites, Monaco, Nelson and Cable Bay.
“They (council) accept that they made a mistake but they refuse to address it,” says spokesperson Daryl Crimp.
In 2019 the group thought they had reached an agreed solution in consultation with local iwi and council to allow recreational use to continue within a marked area, subject to council lodging a resource consent.
Daryl says the solution of using a marked launch area addressed all environmental and cultural concerns of iwi, but once the draft was prepared, he says iwi removed their support of the consent lodging so council decided not to proceed.
He says that left boaties bemused as they began to receive trespass notices on their vehicles from local iwi members.
Council’s group manager of environmental management, Clare Barton, said in October that council needed to work out what they were going to do going forward and were in the process of setting up meetings with both iwi and recreational users at the time.
A year and a half later she says council are “assessing options to progress the issue” after spending the past two summers taking an “educational approach to enforcement reminding boaties not to access the bay at this site” and outlining other areas to launch from.
Te Huria Matenga Wakapuaka Trust member Andrew Stephens says he is still waiting to hear from Clare on what “stance/position” the council is going to take in regards to the site.
He previously said he felt “appalled” when he saw vehicles driving over the sacred land.
