A recommendation to approve commercial cycling tours on Queenstown Lakes District Council walking/cycling trails excludes the popular Outlet Track for now.
Cycle Tours New Zealand, owned by Beau Rapley, of Jacks Point, wants a 10-year licence to run guided trips on trails across council-administered recreation reserve land, mostly in the Wanaka-Hawea area. Mr Rapley hopes to start operating next summer.
A hearing panel consisting of councillors Alexa Forbes and Calum Macleod has recommended the application be approved subject to several conditions, including that the licence be for three two-year terms rather than a single 10-year licence.
Under the panel's recommendation, the council would review the licence at each renewal, taking into account any relevant council-endorsed track strategies.
The council would retain the right to restrict trail use and initially the Outlet and Deans Bank tracks next to the Clutha River, near
Albert Town, would be excluded from the approved licence, until the council decided they were ''suitable for guiding''.
If further tracks were to be removed from the licence, the council would have to give at least a week's notice.
At the hearing to consider the application last month, Wanaka resident Graham Dickson and Denis Nugent, of Albert Town, suggested the narrow and winding Outlet Track was not suitable for cyclists at present.
They both knew pedestrians who had been injured on the track in collisions with cyclists.
Crs MacLeod and Forbes also recommended a maximum group size of 12 cyclists, including two guides, as requested by Mr Rapley. Groups of six people or fewer would require only one guide.
The recommendation will be considered by the Wanaka Community Board at its meeting on April 15, before going before the full council in May.
