Heaphy battle about to resume?

Press, 13 March 1985, Page 3

Heaphy battle about to resume?

From

BARRY SIMPSON

in Nelson

Conservationists are preparing for another round in the long-fought bout over the proposed road link between Collingwood and Karamea.

The routes for such a road, at least those so far presented to the public, intrude on the North-West Nelson Forest Park’s Heaphy Track, and trampers and conservationists want none of it. News that the Nelson Bays United Council has asked the Ministry of Works and Development to have another look at the proposal has prompted the Organisation to Preserve the Heaphy Track to prepare to continue the fight to keep the track free of vehicular access or disturbance. According to the Ministry’s resident engineer, Mr John Walsh, the organisation is jumping the gun. “All we are doing is providing a report to the council on the investigations carried out to date. I will

also be giving a lead as to what cost might be involved in carrying out a feasibility study of the proposal,” he said.

“We would have to undertake a feasibility study before we could give any advice to the Government and this would fine-tune the alternatives and come up with an optimum solution. It will be a very generalised report which I doubt will be ready for the next council meeting,” he said. Since the Ministry of Works undertook a preliminary survey in 1983, conservation groups and trampers have provided an effective opposition to a proposal which, on one plan at least, would effectively halve the 70km track, leaving trampers with a track which mainly traverses downland. Alternative routes, but probably at a much greater cost, that would merely cut the track at one point, leaving the remainder of it undisturbed, have been suggested. One such suggestion is to by-pass one of >

the most unstable, and one of the most beautiful sections of the Heaphy Track, a few kilometres from the Kohaihai start. When the road was first suggested, conservation groups had little difficulty collecting 20,000 signatures for a petition. If the United Council and the Government give any serious thought to the original proposal, both can expect to meet similar firm opposition. Also, there is the cost of the whole project. Mr Walsh was unwilling to “toss around” updated figures for the project. The last figures mentioned, in January, 1983, were between $5O million and $6O million. About $l5 million to $2O million of this would be taken up by reading and improving existing reading (from Turimawiwi to Paturau and from Karamea to Kohaihai). Another $l5 million would be required for bridging. Today’s costs would undoubtedly be much higher, probably higher than the economy could bear?; T

Since 1983, tourism in New Zealand has reached new heights and the linking of Karamea and Collingwood would complete a road chain around the South Island. It would also provide the tourist with some of the most spectacular scenery in New Zealand by travelling over the Marble Mountain into Golden Bay to the start of Farewell Spit, through magnificent bushland round Whanganui Inlet, fine sea and bush views to Karamea, over the Kohaihai bluffs and down the West Coast beside the sea and through mining towns.

Whether tourism could justify the amount required for the project, only a feasibility study would determine.

In January, 1983, the proposers of the link (the South Island Local Bodies’ Association and the South Island Promotion Association) were told by the Wellington District Commissioner of Works, Mr A. T. Proffitt, that the project had a low priority. At that stage, he said, nobody had

put hard figures before him and somebody would have to come up with a proper environmental assessment before there was any talking.

Low priority or no, the Organisation to Preserve the Heaphy Track is not taking any chances. A spokesman, Mr N. R. Fitzgerald, of Christchurch, said yesterday that the arguments against a road had become more compelling with record numbers using the improved track and the fine facilities provided by the Forest Service.

“They go partly because of the unspoiled nature of the several types of landscape through which the track winds its way,” he said. The track also formed part of a walking trail circuit embracing the Abel Tasman, Heaphy, and Wangapeka tracks and Nelson Lakes tracks used by many overseas tourist trampers. “It is a unique circuit which is becoming well known in Europe and the Unital States,” he said.