The founder of Lake Wanaka’s southern crested grebe project John Darby wants to have a say on on the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s lakefront development, as it will impact breeding pairs of grebes and black-billed gulls.
Council staff are currently vetting a land use application to construct a boardwalk at the edge of Lake Wanaka.
An ecological impact assessment found the boardwalk would overhang the lake in five locations, and pile driving could adversely affect vegetation, molluscs and birdlife;
it recommended mitigating effects such as work occurring outside of the birds’ breeding seasons.
Mr Darby was concerned about the boardwalk’s proposed width, saying it should not be "a shared walkway/cycleway, but a place of peace and quiet ..."
Council spokesman Jack Barlow said a decision had been made to not allow cyclists on the boardwalk but it had yet to decide whether to publicly notify the application.
