One of two slips on Ngā Tapuwai o Toi walkway between Ōhope and Ōtarawairere Point Lookout. Photo / Supplied
Whakatāne District Council staff have recommended the permanent closure of Ōhope’s Westend track to Ōtarawairere Point Lookout, and instead put forward an alternate route.
A report to be received by council on Thursday recommends the council not fund the reinstatement of the popular track, which closed in October 2022 due to slips.
An alternative route (Route 2) over the escarpment has been put forward, bypassing the two slips and the lookout point, which would involve constructing a staircase rising almost vertically up the 70-metre slope from the Ōhope end of the existing track.
Route 2 would approach a historic pā site on top of the promontory between Ōhope and Ōtarawairere.
Council said it could provide opportunities to promote cultural awareness and the significance of this site.
Contact was made with Ngāti Hokopū and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa and site visits occurred with archaeologists and hapū representatives. An agreement in principle for the realignment arose from a hapū meeting in October 2024.
Allowing a volunteer group led - by Whakatāne residents Austin Oliver and Angus Robson - to put forward a proposal to restore the current track at their own cost is among the options to be put before council.
Robson was unhappy the Westend walkway volunteer group would not have the opportunity to speak to its proposal at the meeting.
“We’ve been disallowed from presenting our option at the council meeting on Thursday,” Robson told Local Democracy Reporting on Monday.
Mayor Nandor Tanczos urged people not to “jump the gun” over the issue as no decisions had yet been made.
He said the plans of Robson and Oliver’s volunteer group were clear to councillors from their previous presentation.
Councillors were very aware of the strategic value of the track, both as a tourism destination and as a much-beloved place for people in the district, he said.
“I can’t say what is going to come out of [Thursday’s] meeting but I think councillors are very aware of the desire in the community to reopen that track,” he said.
“We’ve been given some ideas about how to go forward but we are also very aware that there are people in the community that have some ideas about how they think this could be done more cost effectively using volunteers.
“I think most councillors are very sympathetic to what they’re trying to do.”
Attached to the report are almost 150 pages of consultants’ reports, including geotechnical reports from CMW Geosciences, Avalon Geotechnical Services and Tonkin & Taylor, carried out between December 2023 and June 2025.
Two further reports by project design and delivery company reNature review a geotechnical report by HD Geo in September 2024 and investigate the potential realignment of the track over the hill.
Also included is a high-level review of these reports by WSP, dated December 2025.
The WSP report notes Tonkin & Taylor’s Quantitative Landslide Risk Assessment which puts the annual individual fatality risk for a member of the public on the currently closed route as between one in 16 million and one in 1.5 billion.
This puts the risk within the “Low” category of guidance set out in the Bay of Plenty Regional Policy Statement and in the “reduce to as low as reasonably practicable” of guidance set out by the Department of Conservation and GNS Science.
The Tonkin and Taylor report indicates that this risk could be further lowered if the track was closed to the public during and after heavy rain events, which was when slips occurred.
It also put the risk of further damage to the track from slips requiring costly repairs as high.
This risk is lower for the alternative vertical staircase route, however this route still relied on existing parts of the track at both the Ōhope and Ōtarawairere ends that were high risk.
The lowest risk and lowest cost option to council was identified as permanently closing the track between Ōhope and the lookout.
The council staff report noted this option “may have an impact on the local visitor economy”.
“But it is expected this would be marginal over the long term. Visitors and the community could access Ōtarawairere Bay from the existing track off Ōtarawairere Road,” the report said.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.