By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE
A coroner has renewed pleas for extended lifesaving services at a remote Coromandel Peninsula beach notorious for tourist drownings - but no one is prepared to pay.
All but one of the eight drownings at Hot Water Beach in the past seven years have involved overseas visitors, and they all occurred when the beach was not patrolled.
Thames coroner John Jenkison said yesterday that Hot Water Beach, 50km north of Whangamata, was in a special category.
The beach, ranked as one of the most popular in New Zealand and widely promoted overseas, had no permanent emergency services or an adequate lifesaving facility.
The nearest fire brigade - at Hahei - is a 20-minute drive away. Tairua police are about half an hour away by road, Whitianga a little longer. Coromandel and Whangamata police are an hour away.
Mr Jenkison, who found at an inquest last month that Maraetai student Ross Alan Doidge, 18, was the latest to drown at Hot Water Beach, on April 13, has now released several recommendations in a bid to prevent further deaths.
He wants the beach given priority in the allocation of lifesaving funds, an emergency siren installed, wide distribution of brochures warning of Hot Water Beach hazards and consideration given to establishing a lifesaving facility.
An estimated 400 international visitors a day are drawn to the unique year-round attraction, enjoying hot water ponds dug in the sand at low tide. However, the surf is notorious for rips and the beach is regarded as the fourth most dangerous in the country.
Lifeguards patrol over the peak summer weeks and none of them live permanently in the small, mainly holiday settlement.
When on duty, the guards use an old tin shed for their headquarters.
A sign advising people to contact the shop, 400m from the beach, in an emergency was described by the coroner as "a rather amateurish way" of dealing with a crisis.
Mr Jenkison previously called for safety improvements after the drowning of another 18-year-old, Japanese student Ippei Naritomi, at Hot Water Beach in June 2000. His family donated $5000 for a warning siren. It has not yet been installed.
In 1999, the coroner recommended a management plan for Hot Water Beach. The Ministry of Tourism recently commissioned one.
Mr Jenkison said the ministry noted that visitors' safety at the beach was primarily a tourism issue which should be addressed with "some urgency".
About 90 per cent of the 152,830 international tourists who came to the Thames Coromandel region last year visited Hot Water Beach. Numbers were rising significantly as roads in the area were improved.
However, Mr Jenkison said, the Ministry of Tourism had taken the view that funding lifesaving services was not a Government obligation; it was up to local authorities and the community.
The regional council, Environment Waikato, declined to contribute and the Thames Coromandel District Council's half-yearly business plan review was not due until January or February, "which, of course, is midway through the holiday season".
There was obviously a major issue over the funding of lifesaving and water safety services, Mr Jenkison said, and the likelihood of even less of a presence at Hot Water Beach this summer was "a matter of real concern".
Surf Life Saving New Zealand chief executive Geoff Barry acknowledged that, ideally, Hot Water Beach should be patrolled seven days a week, six months of the year.
But the voluntary organisation's primary source of funding, the Lottery Grants Board, had allocated $541,000 less than last year and it would be a struggle to sustain services, let alone expand them.
Coroner repeats lifeguard plea
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