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Bike riders are again creating tracks through bush reserves, ignoring or removing council signs, damaging plants and upsetting some local residents.
The issue has again highlighted the need for more designated places for locals to ride, with a number of residents keen to see new tracks provided.
Two years ago, tracks made through Shuttleworth Reserve in Manly (aka Garroway Green in Shuttleworth Place) damaged the bush. Volunteers responded by planting around 100 native plants and Auckland Council erected signs explaining it is illegal to construct tracks in public reserves.
Manly residents Debbie and Murray Vercoe, who voluntarily control pests and weeds in Shuttleworth Reserve, discovered the latest damage on July 8 and reported it to police. Around 40 native plants were pulled out and others chopped down. A bike track around 30m long had been formed, with two jumps.
“We were gutted,” Debbie Vercoe says. “We spent two hours planting natives and tidying up the debris. I understand that bike tracks are needed, but not in a regenerating nature reserve.”
A similar thing is happening at Seagate Reserve in Red Beach. Council’s Hibiscus and Bays, Upper Harbour area operations manager Sandra May says residents near that reserve recently alerted council to illegal dumping and the building of structures for bike riding.
She says council is aware of paths being created across a few Auckland reserves.
“This activity is not permitted, risks damaging and destroying vegetation and is a health and safety risk,” May says. “Our contractor will undertake a clean-up of Shuttleworth Reserve and carry out more planting. In the coming months we will install signs informing the public that planting is underway and that plants need support to establish.”
Not everyone is opposed to bike tracks however. At the Hibiscus and Bays Local Board meeting last week, Rachelle Collier presented a proposal for a public mountain bike track for Seagate Reserve.
She said she was suggesting Seagate Reserve because it is already being used by riders, but that a track could be built anywhere that council deemed appropriate.
“Council is already spending money ripping down the tracks the children make, so why not spend money building something safe for them instead?” she asked. “There is clearly a need.”
Local board chair Alexis Poppelbaum said council staff are looking into the issue but are aware that “reserves are for everyone”.
At the same July 23 meeting, Daniel Kelly sought the board’s support for building a dirt jump park in Silverdale Memorial Park, behind the rugby fields, so local teenagers can extend their riding skills.
The issue of safe places to ride bikes off-road locally is something council is concerned about. Currently the only off-road bike tracks on council land are in Shakespear Regional Park.
“We plan to engage with neighbours of relevant reserves over the next 12 months about park usage and how bikers and other park users can share these spaces,” May says.
There are no new mountain bike tracks planned for Whangaparāoa. However, a plan to develop a pump track is in board’s current three-year programme and a relocatable pump track is shared between East Coast Bays and the Hibiscus Coast. It is due to return to Red Beach in spring.
