$1.8m for 380m walkway

A proposal for a $1.8 million boardwalk spanning just 380m through an ecologically sensitive mangrove swamp on Auckland’s North Shore has drawn the ire of many locals, and conflicts with council recommendations.

The Kaipa¯tiki Local Board this month approved a proposed lakeside boardwalk connecting Shepherds Park to Tui Park in Beach Haven, just weeks out from the local body elections.

This decision to push through two options for a 380m long, 2.5m wide raised boardwalk through the Hellyers Creek mangroves went against Auckland Council parks officers’ recommendation to use the $1.5m budget to upgrade wider 2-3km tracks through Shepherds Park.

The boardwalk options — one exceeding the $1.5m board budget — plus the overall track upgrade option will go to public consultation.

Kaipa¯tiki Local Board member Ann Hartley voted against progressing the boardwalk to the next stage. “The boardwalk’s ridiculous. It just doesn’t make any sense at all, and particularly where it joins the park, it’s crumbling away.”

However, board chairman John Gillon said extra money for the boardwalk could come from other local board budgets next year.

Gillon also said the option to use the $1.5 million to upgrade the tracks through Shepherds Park did not need to be at the expense of building the boardwalk.

“Irrespective of which option is chosen we can still upgrade all the existing [Shepherds Park] tracks.”

Auckland Councillor for the North Shore Chris Darby cautioned that coastal construction had a high risk of ballooning in cost.