The closure of the walking tracks on the north face of Mauao scheduled for next week November 7-11 has been put off for a while.

The Waikorire and Oruahine tracks will instead be closed at a later date, to be advised early next week, say Tauranga City Council staff.

The works are still planned to be completed before Christmas.

The closure of the two tracks is so the Waikorire track can be resurfaced ahead of the busy summer season.

The resurfacing is scheduled to take five days, but is weather dependent and may run into the following week.

The plan last week was to close tracks from the stone steps at the Mount Maunganui Beach entrance up to the summit.

The base track will remain open and unaffected, and the public will still be able to access the Mauao summit from the Pilot Bay entrance, via the 4WD track.

With about 1,000,000 people walking Mauao each year, this work is critical to ensuring the public can enjoy the reserve safely, says Tauranga City Council's parks and recreation manager Warren Aitken.

A heavy lift helicopter has been determined as the most cost-effective way to supply resurfacing materials to the track, and has cut down the closure period considerably, says Warren.

The Oruahine track will be closed for visitor safety during the helicopter phase of the work as it will fly over that area.

It's likely the helicopter work will take 2-3 days, after which the Oruahine track will be reopened.

The closures will be signposted at each of the park entrances and temporary fencing will be in place ahead of restricted areas.

Security staff will be on site at key locations to ensure people are directed to open tracks.