Whakatāne District Council has voted unanimously to support a plan to reopen the popular West End to Ōtarawairere walking track which overlooks Ōhope Beach.

However, the volunteer group offering to carry out the work said they have serious concerns about the conditions attached to the decision.

In a first for the council, a joint project team will be set up to partner with volunteer group Toi’s Track Restoration Trust to carry out the work.

A report from staff had recommended closing the track permanently, due to health and safety risks to the public and workers, the ongoing cost likely to be caused by further slips and liability issues for the council and its officers.

However, at a council meeting on Thursday the mayor and councillors all expressed their wish to have the walkway reopened.

Part of the 17.4km Ngā Tapuwae o Toi loop track between Whakatāne and Ōhope was closed after being hit by a large slip in 2022, followed by another in 2023.

The track was described by councillor Carolyn Hamill as “one of the jewels in our crown”.

Mayor Nandor Tanczos said the status quo of the track being officially closed was “not viable”.

Earlier in the meeting, the council had heard that cameras had been installed to monitor the closed track due to continued vandalism.

“What we have now is the most risky outcome, where we’ve barricaded off a track and people are using it anyway.

Toi's Track Restoration Trust's Austin Oliver and Angus Robson present their plans to restore the track in December while a large crowd filling the council chamber raise their hands to signal their support.

“It’s incredibly unsafe. People will continue to do that regardless of what we do,” Tanczos said.

“[The track] is much loved by locals and by visitors. You get to walk in an area that is enormously cultural and historically important – and beautiful.”

He said he saw community benefit in the council and community doing the work together.

“As a council we’re in a very cost-constrained environment and we need to do everything we can to try to leverage [community] goodwill to try and deliver things cost effectively.

He said the council and community working together was a great way to build resilience.

He thanked the trust and its supporters for their energy and effort in trying to reinstate the track, but also took them to task over some of the tensions that had built between council staff and volunteers over the past year.

He said he had been close to voting against the proposal after seeing comments critical of the council’s chief executive posted on Facebook by members of the trust, the night before the decision.

“That’s really unhelpful, because if you want to work with the council as a community organisation, slagging off our staff is not the way to go.”

He said the attacks had been because someone had disagreed with a council officer’s report.

“Our staff are just doing their job. Their job is to provide independent advice to the best of their ability based on the information they can gather. That’s their statutory obligation.

“Our job as councillors is to decide whether to accept that advice or not.”

One of two slips on Ngā Tapuwai o Toi walkway between Ōhope and Ōtarawairere Point Lookout. Photo / Supplied

“We’ve had some difficult moments in the relationship and I would like to see us reset that, and work together co-operatively.”

Volunteer group trustee Angus Robson said the decision left the group with some hope.

However, council staff had identified 42 gaps between the trust’s proposal to fix the slips in the track and council requirements as set out in its Request for Proposals.

The acceptance of the trust’s proposal had been conditional on these gaps being remedied.

Robson said the reason for the gaps was that the Request for Proposals had been impossible to comply with because it bundled so many things together.

This included maintaining the entire track and reducing the risk of further landslips rather than just repairing the two slips and assurances that maintenance would be continued in future.

“If they insist on rebundling it on these terms, we still won’t be able to do it,” he said.

The council directed staff to work with the group and establish a joint project group.

The track between West End and Ōtarawairere, part of Ngā Tapuwae o Toi, has been closed by Whakatāne District Council, pending a decision on whether to reinstate it.

Robson said such collaboration was something the group had wished to do from the start.

He noted this was the second direction to collaborate with the volunteers that staff had received and the group was yet to see this happen.

He said he was happy the council had directed staff to seek a legal opinion assessing risk to its officers of personal liability.

He had sought such advice previously and believed liability to be overstated by staff.

The council would also seek to unlock the Tourism Infrastructure Funding of $451,000 offered by central government for reinstatement of the track in 2023 and allocate $250,000 from its contingency fund to support the trust.

– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.