Plans for a new Southern Lakes skifield have taken another step forward.
Glencoe Station Ltd has applied to the Queenstown Lakes District Council for resource consent to upgrade and add to a farm track into the Soho Basin in the mountains between Cardrona and Arrowtown.
Earlier this year, it obtained consent to build a 1.2km-long, high-speed, six-person lift in the basin, which is next door to the popular Cardrona Alpine Resort skifield.
Upgrading the track would provide the company with its own 7km road link from Cardrona Valley Rd, 1.5km south of Cardrona, to a Soho Basin skifield.
According to documents filed as part of the application, the upgrade was designed to provide ''safe emergency, property management and maintenance access in all weather conditions''.
The track, known as Blackmans Creek farm track, would be reformed to a width of 4.5m with a 3m-wide gravelled surface.
A roading contractor told the Otago Daily Times this week skifield roads open to the public were generally 8m-9m wide, and a 3m-wide road was not much more than driveway width.
Glencoe Station's sole director John Darby, who is also the majority shareholder in the Treble Cone skifield, did not respond to a request for an interview.
His personal assistant said he was travelling.
An ecology assessment by MWH Global, commissioned by Glencoe, said much of the reformed section would follow a more favourable alignment and gradient than the existing track.
A new section would be added along the skyline ridge, bordering Willow Basin, to the site of a proposed groomer shed in the ski area.
The roadworks in the ski area above 1070m would disturb about 30,200sq m of land during construction.
About 11,600 sq m of indigenous vegetation would be removed permanently and about 18,600sq m would be reinstated.
The road would run from an altitude of about 860m-1660m.
In its conclusion, the MWH report noted the snow tussock grasslands, cushion bogs and cushion fields above 1000m had been assessed as ''ecologically significant'' in terms of the council's district plan.
''At least four plant species and two bird species recorded in these habitats are nationally threatened.''
However, the alignment of the road avoided the cushion fields and other sensitive ecological areas.
''We consider the proposal avoids, remedies and mitigates actual or potential ecological effects,'' the report said.
A council spokeswoman said yesterday the consent application was being assessed to determine if it needed to be publicly notified.
