Sheridan Easdale (left) and Chris Jacomb, of Southern
Pacific Archaeological Research, inspect on a rock shelter
in the Roxburgh Gorge. Photo by Barrie Wills.
The Roxburgh Gorge Trail Trust is "ticking off the boxes"
and is optimistic about starting construction on the first
section of the proposed cycle trail.
The 34km trail down the true right bank (main highway side)
of Lake Roxburgh between Alexandra and the Roxburgh dam, has
been granted land use resource consents and received $2
million in funding through the New Zealand Cycle Trail
Project.
Tenders were likely to be called soon for the first 10km
stretch of the trail, from Alexandra to opposite Doctors
Point, but the project depended on several factors, trust
chairman Stephen Jeffery said yesterday.
"We haven't made the decision yet to proceed. It will hinge
on a number of things, including the tender prices. As well,
we're still talking to landowners about some exchange of
values and about easements over some of the land
involved.""One of the conditions of our resource consent was
an archaeological assessment and we've had the first part of
that, for the 10km section, carried out.
That report will go to the Historic Places Trust and we don't
know know yet what they might ask us to do.
"What we're doing is ticking all the boxes we can, with
several projects on the go at once, doing all we can to start
the first section of the trail." The trail is estimated to
cost $3.3 million and various avenues of funding were being
explored for the $1.3 million to be found by the trust, he
said.
There are 11 private landowners along the trail route, as
well as Department of Conservation, Land Information New
Zealand and Contact.
"I remain optimistic it will get off the ground and I'm
mindful of the fact that it's a good time to be looking at
carrying out the first section of the trail, if we can. It
would be a positive thing for our district at the moment. "
The archaeological assessment of part of the proposed route
was carried out by Southern Pacific Archaeological Research
(Spar).
That section of the trail is all marginal strip or public
reserve land.
Spar director Chris Jacomb said 11 sites were recorded during
the assessment. Most would not be affected by construction of
the cycle trail and were unlikely to be damaged as a result
of an increased number of visitors.
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