KEY POINTS:
Manukau City Council hopes to open the Kawakawa Bay/Clevedon Rd within the next few weeks for limited periods.
But the promise is not enough for some residents, who hurled abuse at council officials at a meeting in the Kawakawa Bay Community Hall last night.
About 500 residents turned
up to ask questions and voice their opinions about what the council should be doing to allow access to and from the community.
The road, the main access into Kawakawa Bay and Orere Pt, has been closed for the past two weeks because of a large landslip caused by this winter's heavy rain.
Residents have had to travel an extra 100km around the southeast coast of Auckland to get to work each morning or catch a free ferry, set up by the council, to Pine Harbour.
The council has built a walking track behind the slip through a farm on Turei Hill, but residents have been advised to use it only during daylight hours for safety reasons.
One woman asked what the council expected shiftworkers to do if they couldn't walk over the track at night and there were no late ferries.
Council economic director Rick Walden had no answer.
"So are you suggesting we stay elsewhere?" the woman asked.
Another quipped: "So, when we get the sack, you'll pay my wages? I'll tell my boss: 'I can't come in to work today it's too dark'."
Mr Walden said the council hoped to open one lane of the road in a few weeks in daylight hours.
An irate resident said sarcastically: "Mr Walden said he hoped to have the road going before Christmas, but he didn't specify which Christmas."
The council also explained that if residents required medical attention an ambulance would come from Ngatea, but if it was more serious a rescue helicopter would be sent.
Mr Walden said he had expected the verbal abuse, but the council was doing its best to get the road open.
"We don't come to these things for the praise. People come here to vent their frustrations.
"To us, a solution in weeks or months from now is a positive thing. To them, they want action now."
Orere Pt couple Harvey and Nancy McInnes used to help their son with his landscaping business in Clevedon once a week.
But to avoid the lengthy alternative route, they are going only once every three weeks and cramming as much work as they can in.
"There are a lot of frustrated people," Mrs McInnes said. "The council is doing their best, they can only do what their engineers recommend, I suppose. I feel sorry for the [local] businesses that are probably missing out."
