A Business is offering the prospect of dog-drawn sled rides through the Alexandra pines.
Yesterday, the Central Otago District Council announced a resource consent application by Under Dog NZ Ltd for commercial dog-sledding near Alexandra. The company would run tours on the council-owned land northwest of the town known as The Pines.
Operators Fleur and Curt Perano live in Roxburgh and have run dog-sledding tours on the Cardrona Valley snow for three years.
The new service would run year-round between 8am and 2pm daily, but with less activity from July to late September.
The application said the noise effects would be minor as the closest residence was over 700m from the staging area.
The business would offer "dry land'' tours in which customers would drive wheeled sleds pulled by dog teams under the supervision of a guide.
The operation would be completely mobile and everything would be cleaned up or taken away afterwards, it said.
No areas would be cordoned off, but signs and guides would ensure the safety of passersby during business hours.
The new operation was a way of increasing the business' season from three to 12 months, the submission saidUnder Dog NZ Ltd would locally spend between $3000 and $5000 monthly in its first 12 months and would have specialist sleds made in the district.
The operators had more than 17 years' experience in dog-sledding, including racing professionally in the United States.
More dogs would be imported from Alaska and housed with the others in Roxburgh.
There would be no more than 20 dogs at the site at one time.
Late last year, the Vincent Community Board agreed the business should be able to operate providing it received resource consent.
