Waikato District Council says it may close the walkway from Cambrae Road along the Waikowhai Stream to Lorenzen Bay. After failing to maintain the walkway for several years, part of it is slipping into the Stream. When local residents asked for the walkway to be repaired they were told that would be too expensive. Council says the area is prone to tidal flooding. This last happened in 2018. This is the same Council that is spending $2 million on a new walkway in Raglan West. The Council has also just received $7.88 million of Better Off funding from the Government.

When Raglanites learnt of the Council plan to close the walkway and replace it with a cliff top walkway they started a petition. We’ve been told this will be presented to the next meeting of the Raglan Community Board.

We asked Waikato District Council:

On 5th July: “I’m being told by Cambrae Road residents that their short footpath to the Lorenzen Bay Beach is slipping into the Waikowhai creek.

When they reported this to Council they were told there was no money to fix it.

Instead Council would be closing the footpath.

This seems a bit odd.  i.e. That Council is spending $2 million on a new footpath, but doesn’t have money to maintain existing footpath assets.

Please advise.”

On 4th August, “Today I’ve been told that as Council has provided no information Raglan residents are circulating a petition to stop the walkway from being closed.

Perhaps Council could use some of the Better Off funding to fix the Cambrae to Lorenzen Walkway?

I would appreciate a response.”

On the 5th August the Council provided this information:

Please see below. This information has also been supplied to the Raglan Community Board on behalf of Waikato District Council. Please attribute the response to Waikato District Council. If you wish to attribute this to someone, please let me know and I can provide spokesperson details.

The Cambrae Road walkway is likely to be closed as it has become unsafe, difficult, and costly to maintain due to a number of factors:

• Bank erosion – the walkway banks falling into the storm water outlet that runs off into the harbour
• Width of the walkway – too narrow to plant for stability and allow for access, and at times inundated with water
• The area is a catchment for Lorenzen Bay and Cambrae Rd properties, so often heavy water flows during the winter months.
• The area is tidal – recently the stream walkway has been flooded due to the bigger tides and rain fall

Staff have environmental and financial stewardship concerns regarding this walkway, so have proposed the following solutions:

• Close the walkway and relocate the accessway between 27 Bay View Road and 2A Cambrae Road (dashed line on attached map)
  • An accessway and esplanade reserve is existing and would require upgrade to be suitable for pedestrians
  • Considered low impact to pedestrian users convenience as it is within 100 m of the existing walkway
  • Proposed closed walkway could be planted with harakeke, sedges and grasses to help with stability of the stream banks and support the existing freshwater habitat

It is appreciated that the community have expressed their concerns for the walkway to the Community Board, and it is impressive to see the organised approach.

We hope the above provides more detail of the issue but also a better appreciation to the solutions we are also investigating.

Next steps from here:

Please feel free to update the community on the solutions we are investigating. If they have any feedback I can pass this onto our Parks Officer for consideration or comment.

Before any accessways are closed (unless there is a H&S concern) the community will be kept updated. This project has not reached the stage where any decision or action is to be taken, hence no further communications have been made unless asked.