A "huge roadblock" is holding up a start on the next leg of the $26.3million Otago Central cycle trail network that would link Queenstown with Cromwell.
The Central Otago Queenstown Trail Network Trust will officially open the Cromwell to Clyde leg on May 8.
Ideally, it would have gone straight on with the Cromwell to Queenstown leg, through the Kawarau Gorge, which would establish a link to hundreds of kilometres of off-road trails stretching almost to the east coast.
But frustrated trust chairman Stephen Jeffery said work could not start until the trust was sure it had access through land administered by the Department of Conservation (Doc).
Last year, four years after the trail network was announced by then-prime minister John Key, Doc began considering where cycle trails could be constructed on its land in Otago.
Its partial review of its Otago Conservation Management Strategy generated 1700 written public submissions, and a hearing day in Queenstown on Monday, following hearings in Wanaka.
Mr Jeffery said the Doc decision was not expected until the end of this year.
Only then could the trust apply for resource consent from the Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago district councils and Otago Regional Council.
Construction could take a further two years.
The cycle network project got the thumbs-up in May 2016 from Mr Key, who put a three-way funding arrangement in place.
Mr Jeffery said construction costs kept rising.
Starting work on the Cromwell to Wanaka leg as an alternative was not an option because of the Doc issues,
so some of the contractors were instead working on extending the trail south of Lawrence towards Dunedin.
