Breakwater night closure plans unpopular

Just one year after the Waitaki District Council opened the breakwater area in Oamaru Harbour for 24-hour public access, it seems likely to be closed.

In a press release  last week the council said it was trialling a closure during hours of darkness. A decision about making the trial permanent would be made at the council’s September 13 meeting. The gates on to what is known by some as "the Wee Beach" were left unlocked after a council decision on September 16 last year.

Leaving the gates open also allowed access  to the breakwater.

Oamaru conservation stalwart Jim Caldwell led the lobbying effort to leave the gates unlocked and said  last week he was "not really" happy about the council’s trial.

"This is still going to keep ratepayers, or citizens, off the beach, when they should be allowed on it 24 hours a day," Mr Caldwell  said.

In the council statement, acting chief executive Neil Jorgensen said increasingly large groups of people going on to the breakwater in the dark to view little blue penguins returning to shore at the the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony caused the council to hold "real concerns about the penguins being disturbed and harmed and that people may take undue risks and could potentially hurt themselves".

Mr Caldwell wanted the council to back up its claims about penguin welfare with scientific evidence — "and there’s none".

"This penguin and safety thing is a straight-out smokescreen: get everyone off the breakwater and they’ll come and pay to go through — they won’t."

Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said unlocking the gate to allow 24-hour access to the beach and thereby the breakwater was "an opportunity to see how it went", but the council had since listened to the concerns of Tourism Waitaki.

"It [unlocking the gate] was working on the principle of trying to give people as much access to our property as possible, and no-one really imagined we were going to get over 100 people there every night [over the summer] — and just really the public safety risks that were raised," he said.

He disagreed with Mr Caldwell that the decision was based on trying to sell more tickets to the penguin colony.

"When there’s 100 people on the breakwater the stands are often full, so they can’t actually sell any more tickets," he said, and there were "plenty of places"  elsewhere  at the harbour to see penguins.

There would be a formal report to council and there would be an opportunity for the public to speak at a public forum, Mr Kircher said.

"There’s no perfect solution, so we’re working on one that makes sure that penguin welfare and public safety are taken care of, within reason, but people still have access to it for good parts of the day."

hamish.maclean@odt.co.nz