Source: Radio New Zealand
A view from Nga Tapuwae o Toi walkway. Supplied
Whakatane council is looking to restore a walk that is said to capture the essence of the town but with little council funding.
Local councils have had expenditures piling up from water services to storm repairs and now a planned rates cap casting a shadow on how councils can maintain public amenities.
Whakatane’s Nga Tapuwae o Toi walkway is currently facing this issue, after rainfall and slips left parts of the track damaged.
The loop track spans over around 18 kilometres, going from town and around Kohi Point then over to Ōhope Beach.
While the track was not entirely closed there were parts of it that remain inaccessible and people needed to walk onto the road to complete the loop.
The district council’s general manager community experience Alexandra Pickles told Nine to Noon they were hoping for a community initiative to help fund the restoration of the special walk.
“We believe it’s a national treasure. It’s not only accessible right from the centre of town, it has a significant cultural history.”
The track is home to one of Aotearoa’s earliest known pā sites, the eponymous ancestor of Ngā Te Awa Toi. The name of the walkway itself translates to “the footsteps of Toi”
“It was an area that was travelled hundreds of years ago and is a beautiful place just to enjoy. We also have one of New Zealand’s only urban Kiwi populations right there as well.”
Given the track’s significance, the Department of Conservation had been interested in establishing the walkway as a “great one-day walk”.
However, as beautiful as the walk is, Pickles said the geology had presented some challenges.
“It is quite soft in terms of the composition of the rock with sandstone and greywacke, which likes to crumble and fall over time.”
Drone footage Nga Tapuwae o Toi damage. Supplied
She said significant rainfall in 2022 had caused a major slip in the section that goes from the West End Beach in Ōhope over to to Ōtarawairere Bay, which closed the track for that period of time.
Council had been able to put in some funding at the time and acquired some tourism infrastructure funding to carry out storm damage repairs. However, it wasn’t long before more damage had struck.
“Just as that funding was approved, we had another significant slip… which meant that there was now a greater requirement to understand what the repair might look like and what that would cost, knowing that it would be significant.”
She said since the first slip they had been able to identify engineered solutions but costs to execute these solutions stood in the way.
“The cost of those are taking us down to the millions of dollars in order to complete the entirety of that and with our health and safety obligations to do that in a way that’s taking all steps that are reasonably practicable.”
Pickles said they had rallied a group of volunteers with varied expertise and a joint passion for the walkway.
The next step was to put out a request for proposal that would give community-based people with skills an opportunity to help fund the restoration in a safe and feasible way.
“If it plays out how we would like it to play out, then this could be a model for other things that, during fiscal constraints, mean that councils and communities can work together in order to get the best outcomes, not just rate-funded outcomes.”
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand