Letter to the Editor, Thursday March 10, 2016

Time to tame Ahipara

Having spent a fairly long time at Ahipara, beside the main road along the foreshore recently, I would like to mention a few observations.

On the plus side it is a stunningly beautiful part of New Zealand, some of the people are so lovely and care deeply for this special place we all have. The ocean is very bountiful and the surf is amazing.

On the negative side there is complete lawlessness on the beach and roads surrounding Ahipara. It's like the Wild West out there. It is my understanding that the beach is classed as a road, and to use the beach with a beach-only vehicle you must have a beach registration. There were only a very small handful of beach vehicle users with registration plates and many dozens without, which makes it impossible to report their appalling use of vehicles to the people who can act on it.

Any vehicles which don't have seat belts require the wearing of helmets. This is a rarity to see someone wearing a helmet at Ahipara, and the police do nothing about it.

Speeding along the road and beach by all classes of vehicle users is non-stop, there are wheelies performed up and down the beach constantly by two-wheelers, donuts up and down the beach by all classes of vehicles, quad bikes overtaking cars on the roads, vehicles speeding amongst pedestrians on the beach. All of this is happening all the time, and the police do nothing when they could be impounding most of these vehicles under boy racer laws.

The number of excessively loud vehicles (all classes) is also an issue. Peace and solitude at this beach are non-existent I thought there are noise restrictions on the use of motor vehicles?

And still the police do nothing. Cars and bikes with no mufflers, rusted-out cars with no WOFs regularly cruise the road and beaches and the police do nothing.

Young and very young people riding motor bikes, people riding on vehicle sideboards, multiple people riding on trailers at speed, and still the police are never there to do something about it. In the weekends there might be a single visit from a highway policeman, but they are as good as doing nothing.

I would have spent several thousand dollars at the beach and immediate areas during my stay. I am extremely reluctant to stay here again and support the locals until the beach attitudes are sorted out, and I will be passing this on to social media to warn everybody off from your beautiful beach as well.

The local police really need to sort out Ahipara Beach and the locals need to start reporting this appalling behaviour I guarantee you will easily get 50-plus calls an hour to your *555 number until you clean up the Wild West at Ahipara.

I come from a very long, flat beach very similar to Ahipara, and these kinds of appalling behaviours don't happen here due to good policing and beach wardens, but the beach vehicle users still have their fun.

Sort it out, because your law-abiding locals are sick of nothing being done about it.

JULIAN JACKSON

Foxton Beach