Dunedin's John Wilson Ocean Drive, which forms a popular roadway to Lawyer's Head across the sand dune barrier between St Kilda Beach and parts of the suburbs of St Kilda and Musselburgh, affords spectacular views of the coastline and Pacific Ocean and has proved to be one of the city's important attractions for visitors and locals alike.
Its closure in 2006 to enable unimpeded construction of the city's extended sewage outfall was assumed by almost all residents, if they thought about it at all, to be of a temporary nature, and it appears also from recent reports of Dunedin City Council meetings that it was never the expectation of councillors to close the road permanently to vehicular traffic.
At some point - quite when is immaterial - other parties appear to have determined a different future for the roadway, much of which still remains closed by a temporary barrier to traffic including, as recently as the Easter weekend, even foot traffic.
The "other parties" who see advantages in not having the road reopened include the Department of Conservation, which claims to have evidence of increased use of the area by wildlife during the closure; members of the medical profession, who have told councillors the number of people committing suicide by leaping from the cliff at Lawyers Head has dramatically reduced since access was restricted; and council bureaucrats who have argued the gate should stay until a long-term management plan for Ocean Beach is completed.
This, according to parks and reserves team leader Martin Thompson, could take "several years" - later explained as not less than 18 months to two years.
It is very likely that the cause of the subsequent hostile public reaction to this latter disclosure was its surprise.
If council officials had not wanted to raise public expectations about the road reopening, then the time to do so was when it was first closed.
It certainly seems clear councillors had not specifically realised the road would be closed for several years, which suggests the corporate tail may yet again have been wagging the governance dog.
It is accepted that public access to the reserve must always be secondary to the need to preserve and protect the dunes.
There are many important matters still to be determined with regard to the security and stability of the beach and dunes along the whole stretch of coast from Lawyer's Head to St Clair, and a great deal of essential data on the erosion process still to be collected.
Obtaining these data and determining the course of future protection is a matter of vital importance to the whole city, yet a thorough case for closing the road while it takes place does not seem to have been advanced, or at least made sufficiently strongly to arouse the attention of councillors, let alone the public to whom councillors are answerable.
The case for keeping the road closed is quite weak.
The absence of people and their dogs on Lawyers Head, it has been claimed, has resulted in the presence of a female sea lion and her pup, a nesting oyster-catcher, and the sighting of a yellow-eyed penguin, among other observations.
These are hardly striking numbers.
It is said that more sea lions have been observed on the beach beneath the cliff, but is this due to the relative absence of vehicles on the road, or from some other cause? After all, people are still walking along the beach, and exercising their dogs along the beach.
The issue of a potential problem with mentally disturbed people is essentially insoluble; fences may be a possible deterrent, the presence of other members of the public another.
A balance clearly needs to be struck between the potential value of this very small part of our coast to indigenous wildlife - it cannot today be regarded as a significant habitat or surely a likely significant habitat given what the city itself discharges into the ocean nearby - and the potential value to Dunedin for recreation and tourism purposes.
The issue of road access is now going to be relitigated, with a fresh report to the appropriate council committee.
It may include a recommendation to reopen the road.
We certainly hope it does.
And if closing road access at night is likely to assist in the encouragement of wildlife in the area, then let it be done.
That alone may help eliminate the problem of speeding younger drivers and general vandalism which, more truthfully, are the core problems of public access.
