Tauranga City Council park maintenance back in action

Estuary and boardwalk at McCardles Bush, Tauranga. Photo / File

Tauranga City Council is restoring parks and reserves under Covid-19 alert level 3.

While the focus remains on essential services, park maintenance services including mowing and gardening are resuming.

Tauranga City Council spaces and places manager Mark Smith said in a written statement the city's parks and reserves included almost 1600 hectares of parks, reserves, sports fields and berms, as well as around 98km of public walkways.

"You'll begin to see our people mow, garden or maintain our parks, reserves and pitches again. Following more than four weeks of not being able to maintain these spaces, there's a lot of area to cover.

"We'll be getting to your area as soon as we can, and in a few weeks things will be looking neat and tidy again."

Tauranga City Council maintenance of green spaces

• Mowing of 95ha of road berms
• Mowing of 152ha of reserve land
• Maintaining 98km of walkways
• Keeping and maintaining 116ha of sports fields (with 59ha of this being sports playing surfaces)
• Gardening 30ha of street and reserve gardens
• Weed control of 343ha of native and dune vegetation

If you see staff out and about, please respect physical distancing and keep two metres away from them and their equipment.

The TECT park is partially open for mountain biking, horse riding and walking.

There is a strict one-way policy on the accessible trails with signage making this clear to users.

All playgrounds are closed.

Please stay away from playgrounds and avoid touching playground equipment as well as surface areas such as park benches.

People should also avoid using picnic tables.

Public BBQs and drinking fountains remain turned off.

Some park gates will remain locked however, parks and reserves are open to the public (except Mauao, Ōropi Mountain Bike Park and McLaren Falls Park).