Plans to reinstate peninsula walkway

Blueprint: Discussing an old map showing the paper road to be reinstated as a walkway to Company Bay are (from left) Bayne Tce resident Ross Whitburn, Otago Peninsula Community Board member Bill Allen and MacAndrew Bay Residents Association member Dave Goodwin. Photo by Bruce Munro.

This month the Otago Peninsula Community Board gave Dublin Bay residents $500 to clear and reform the walking track which locals once used to access Company Bay and the Methodist Mission rest-home and hospital.
The site is now the Mission Cove residential development.

‘‘Lots of locals used it to go to work at the home and hospital,'' Ross Whitburn, of Bayne Tce, said.
‘‘The track hasn't been used for a few years now, but it would provide safe and easy access to Company Bay for local and visiting walkers alike.''

The walkway was an unformed paper road from the early days of the area's settlement.

But the growth of housing and trees led to the track not being used and becoming overgrown.
Now the 3m-wide road's boundaries have been resurveyed and defined. And support for the plan has been given by the Macandrew Bay Residents

Association and the community board.
In addition to clearing the track, steps need to be cut in the steep bank.
The Corrections Department has been approached about providing workers.

‘‘It would take us about four months to do the work and take them about one week,'' Mr Whitburn said.
‘‘We would like to see it done before winter.''