Landowners, who use the road to Taronui to reach their properties, have drawn a line in the sand.

If you head to Taronui today, you’ll be met by the new electronic gate, a second padlocked gate and a warning that a surveillance camera is operating – all this aimed at keeping public vehicles out.

To clarify:

The whole access to the reserve is held for conservation purposes (NZ Gazette 1989 pg 5684).

The conservation strip is on public land. It provides a legally available public access.

There is an easement over the conservation areas that allows the adjoining landowners to use their vehicles to access their properties, however they do not have any rights to block access to members of the public using this conservation area. 

The gate means that the landowners can drive on the public conservation strip - and they can drive across a new, taxpayer funded bridge - while the public is restricted to walking access only. 

For us this means a challenging 3.7km walk to get to the Taronui Recreation Reserve and a diverse stretch of coastline.

In the wider Kerikeri area, we have, over the years lost our open coast beaches, because access to them is over private land. We can’t change that.

But here we have an opportunity to use public land to reach a public coastal reserve.  For all of us.

The formed road on the other side of the gate is on public land except for two places where it veers from the conservation strip onto private land.

We have asked DOC to approve realignment and upgrading so that public vehicle access is secured in perpetuity.

According to legal information received under the Official Information Act, it would be ‘a pretty straight forward process’ for DOC to support and provide vehicle access. It would simply be a management decision, within the department, as to how to administer the area.

The new gate simply went up - with no consultation, in spite of the fact that more than 7,000 people have signed this petition.

Comments received in this petition indicate just how strongly people feel about the loss of our coastline.

The gate illustrates exactly why it is imperative to realign the road off private land.

Taronui is not a priority, DOC says, giving cost as a key reason why they will not provide formal public vehicle access to Taronui Bay.

Therefore, we are now looking to engage the community in a partnership to get the road realigned and upgraded, without begging for DOC funding.

And we continue to seek a collaborative approach, involving Ngati Rehia, the public, affected landowners and DOC, to draft options for management and maintenance.

DOC acknowledges that there has been extensive work done on the issue of vehicle access to Taronui over more than 15 years.

In 2005, then Minister of Conservation Chris Carter said: “I am very interested in securing the public’s right of access to the coast. I am assured that the department’s Bay of Islands staff will vigorously pursue seeking improved access to this beach (Taronui).”

We remain hopeful.

Please send an expression of support for a community drive, aimed at improving access to Taronui to kerimolloy2@gmail.com