Zipline firm to make call within 4 weeks

THE company proposing a zipline for Oamaru Harbour will decide within four weeks whether to go ahead with the project.

Select Contracts regional director Darron Charity said yesterday recent feedback from the community — both positive and negative — was ‘‘giving us a view’’ on whether a proposed 900m dualline zipline, launching from Cape Wanbrow and landing in a steampunkthemed addition to the Steampunk Playground at Friendly Bay, would be generally welcomed and worth pursuing.

‘‘We need to continue our internal analysis of that and obviously, the local parties that are involved down there and our local investors, we’ve got to think about them first and foremost and that everybody is comfortable with the decision that is made in the future.’’

A development ‘‘never will’’ please everyone, but some on the company’s board — former mayor Alan McLay, farming and business richlister Ian Hurst and Oamaru restaurateur SallyAnn Donnelly — and the company wanted ‘‘to be respectful of that’’.

After spending 15 months revising a design to ensure the proposed tourist attraction would not impact the seabird life in Oamaru Harbour, the company launched a survey soliciting feedback from Oamaru residents.

Shortly after, an online petition opposing the plan was started as well, asking the Waitaki District Council to block the proposal, and by last night it had attracted 370 signatures.

The Otago Daily Times contacted the person who started the petition, but they asked to remain anonymous.

Council acting communications adviser Sonia Martinez said both Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher and chief executive Fergus Power were aware of the petition.

‘‘The petition will be received and considered by councillors,’’ she wrote in an email.

‘‘They will decide on the course of action from that point and, should they decide to allow the project to continue on to the next stage, there will be further opportunity for the public to have a say.’’

Mr Kircher — who first floated the idea for a zipline at the harbour in 2015 and originally was an investor in the company — expected to exclude himself from any decisionmaking on the substantive steps in the process.

Mr Charity said the company did not view its survey, which attracted 142 responses, 67% of which were in favour of the proposal, to be in competition with the petition.

‘‘It’s always the negatives that seem to make more noise than the positives. But that’s part and parcel of any development — you get both sides of any coin.

‘‘We’re still excited about getting on with the development, but it’s certainly not a fait accompli at this point in time.

‘‘We don’t have the time or energy or the funds to go in there and start wading into a long, protracted legal process to make this happen. If it’s not going to work for the community, it doesn’t work for us.’’