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Friction over parking on the reserve at the bottom of Brick Bay Drive heated up when allegedly eight boat trailers had their tyres slashed on November 17.
Several nearby residents have opposed vehicles using the space to park and one trailer owner, who fell victim to the vandalism, is pointing the finger at them.
Wayne Smith came back from a day out on the water to find he had suffered $500 worth of damage. He wasn’t the only one.
“If people don’t want us parking on the reserve they can leave a note on the windscreen, but this vandalism is completely unnecessary,” Wayne says.
He parks at the reserve because he says it’s too expensive to use the paid parking on the spit.
“It’s cheaper to park at Westhaven for the day than it is at Sandspit, so I don’t use the carpark.”
Sandspit Residents and Ratepayers Association chair Greg Doherty says parking on the reserve has been a long-standing issue, but thinks the claims that it is the motivation behind the vandalism are premature.
“The association does not condone this type of behaviour at all, and I think it’s dangerous to speculate who did this,” Greg says. “There’s no evidence at this stage at all. For all we know it could have been kids causing trouble.”
He does have concerns about the reserve being misused and the narrowness created on the road by trailers parking on it.
“On busy weekends, there can be up to 200 trailers up the drive and it’s not safe for vehicles that are forced to cross the centre line to get past them.”
He believes that at a casual rate of $18 a day the parking is reasonable at Sandspit and should be utilised by boaties.
Warkworth Police Sergeant Mark Stallworthy says the offenders have not yet been identified. He invites anyone with useful information to report it to the station.
Auckland Transport was unable to comment on whether any changes would be made at Brick Bay Drive to deal with the issue.
