This new footpath, on Horeke Rd, west of Ōkaihau, starts where the Twin Coast Cycle Trail descends into the Utakura Valley and ends at Ōkaihau Public Cemetery. Photo / Peter de Graaf
This new footpath, on Horeke Rd, west of Ōkaihau, starts where the Twin Coast Cycle Trail descends into the Utakura Valley and ends at Ōkaihau Public Cemetery. Photo / Peter de Graaf
For those travelling west of the Northland town of Ōkaihau, it's not the easiest going beyond the open road sign.
There, a pressed mud path with scattered gravel for grit serves cyclists travelling the Twin Coast Cycle Trail between Horeke on the Hokianga Harbour and Opua in the Bay ofIslands.
And then lo, 2km on, a footpath emerges seemingly from nowhere - one of 21 pavement projects in the Far North, costing ratepayers $950,000.
The new footpath starts 2km west of town, runs for 567m along ridge-top Horeke Rd, then ends abruptly at Ōkaihau Public Cemetery.
Kaikohe-Hokianga Community Board chairman Mike Edmonds said the footpath was a long-held wish of Ōkaihau residents which had taken about a decade to filter to the top of the priority list.
"There's no way the community board would let a footpath to nowhere go in, if there's a better place for it."
To remove politics from decisions about where new footpaths should go, council engineers ranked footpath proposals in a ''matrix'' using criteria such as proximity to schools, safety, and connectivity with other walkways.
The community board had the final say but used it only to ensure an even, fair mix of footpath projects across the large Kaikohe-Hokianga area.
''We want everyone to get a fair share. If you know a politician, that doesn't get you a footpath.''
Although the concrete footpath started well out of town, it did so at the point where the Twin Coast Cycle Trail split from Horeke Rd and descended into the Utakura Valley.
Pedestrians were permitted on the cycle trail which ran alongside Settlers Way and Horeke Rd.
The Horeke Rd footpath is one of 21 due to be completed in the Far North in the 2021-22 financial year.
The Far North District Council was using rates to pay for 14 footpaths while the remaining seven were funded by a government redeployment scheme for workers left jobless by the Covid-19 pandemic. The total distances covered were 4.9km and 2.2km, respectively.
In the Bay of Islands the most eagerly awaited footpath was the final section of a Waitangi to Haruru pathway along State Highway 11.
That project stalled on the last hill in 2017 due to the cost of getting around a roadside slip, leaving pedestrians to negotiate a narrow dirt track between a traffic barrier and a safety fence.
Work resumed last week but the plan was now to realign the highway near the top of Kaipatiki Hill to create space for a footpath while avoiding the need for costly engineering work.
This footpath under construction on Pa Rd, Kerikeri, is one of 21 being built around the district. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Significant footpaths are also being built along Ahipara's Foreshore Rd (1.1km); Signal Station Rd in Ōmāpere (1km, leading to a popular walkway and lookout at Arai Te Uru or South Hokianga Head); and Pā Rd in Kerikeri (800m, linking Inlet Rd with a series of walking tracks to Kerikeri Basin, Kororipo Pā and Wairere Falls).
The other projects are in:
Te Hiku Ward: Pukenui (SH1), Kaitāia (North Rd, North Park Dr, Matthews Ave, Dominion Rd), Taipā (Foreshore Rd).
Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Ward: Kerikeri (Blacks Rd), Waitangi (Tau Henare Dr), Matauri Bay (Matauri Bay Rd).
The council budget for footpaths in 2021-22, as set out in the Long Term Plan, is $950,000 with the amount split evenly across the three wards. The council's three community boards have the final say on which footpaths go ahead.
