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Drivers may have to abide by a code of conduct on a region's popular tourist beaches next summer, followed by enforceable bylaws on specific "high conflict" beaches by late next year.
Officials have recommended that Northland Regional Council creates bylaws to enforce reduced speed limits on at least
four of its beaches.
The change will require the region's three district councils to extend their boundaries to low water marks and formally transfer bylaw-making power to the regional council.
A staff report on vehicles on beaches, to be considered at a regional council meeting in Whangarei today, recommends the development of site-specific bylaws on "high conflict" beach areas identified from public feedback.
These include Ahipara (southern end of 90 Mile Beach), Tokerau Beach (Doubtless Bay), Bream Bay and Baylys Beach/Glinks Gully on the west coast south of Dargaville.
Tauranga teenager Daisy Fernandez, 13, died on the beach at Glinks Gully on New Year's Eve when she was run down by a 15-year-old on a motorbike. Her friend Claudia Billinge was seriously injured.
Kaitaia police get regular complaints from Ahipara beach residents concerned about the behaviour of drivers of cars, four-wheel-drive vehicles and motorbikes on the popular and well-used section of 90 Mile Beach.
The council report says proposed bylaws would aim to reduce speeds on the specified beaches within a set distance of a beach access point. At Bream Bay, for example, a safe pedestrian zone could apply to the high recreational-use area in front of the Ruakaka Surf Lifesaving Club and the Department of Conservation's Uretiti campground where recreational vehicles are prohibited.
The report's authors, regional council coastal monitoring leader Bruce Howse and senior coastal policy analyst Jonathan Gibbard, say education alone has not been enough to address serious public safety and resource management issues on beaches.
Apart from safety concerns and nuisance effects caused by noisy motorbikes driven at speed near other beach users, environmental effects are apparent in sand dune areas and native shore bird nesting locations.
Mr Howse and Mr Gibbard say the regional council should take the lead role in co-ordinating and developing bylaws affecting vehicles on beaches.
Whangarei, Far North and Kaipara district councils would have to give their bylaw-making powers to the regional council which can be done under the Local Government Act.
Speed limits on beaches can be set under Land Transport rules.
Public buy-in and consultation will be needed before any bylaw is enacted and a proposed time frame in the report says that could start in November this year with public submissions and hearings between June and September next year.
Bylaws would become effective from November 2009.
In the meantime, the report recommends the regional council adopts a code of conduct as a priority for vehicles on beaches.
Under the code, joint agency signs (district councils, police and DoC) would go up at high-use beaches spelling out to vehicle users that road rules applied and that responsibility was needed.
It's anticipated the region-wide code of conduct could be drawn up and confirmed, with signs erected at high-use beaches, by May this year.
As a first step to developing a subsequent bylaw regime, a vehicles on beaches workshop is scheduled for next month.
It will require regional and district council, police and DoC representatives to agree to a collaborative approach on using vehicles on beaches.
It will also cover the issues of bylaw power transfer to the regional council and a change in district council beach boundaries from mean high water to mean low water on beaches.
* GO SLOW
Reduced speed limits are proposed for:
Ahipara (southern end of 90 Mile Beach)
Tokerau Beach (Doubtless Bay)
Bream Bay (south of Whangarei Harbour)
Baylys Beach/Glinks Gully (south of Dargaville)