Landowner warns off trampers
A sign warning trampers a walking track to Mt Taranaki is closed has no legal standing.
The sign has been erected by a landowner and states the Plymouth track, near New Plymouth, is closed and there was no public access.
However, New Plymouth Tramping Club president Kevin Curd said access was not prohibited and people should not be put off using it.
He said tramping club members often used the Plymouth track as it linked up with the Kiri Track to form a convenient 4-4.5 hour loop walk.
The track, which follows an unformed road, also known as a paper road, runs along a number of lifestyle blocks at the top of Carrington and Plymouth Rds.
Curd said the paper road cannot be closed to the public.
‘‘An unformed road gave legal access to the public and no one should be able to close it,’’ Curd said. ‘‘We don’t want to lose these tracks, which are old hunters tracks, forever.’’
He said nobody had ever stopped the club using the track but inexperienced trampers may believe it was closed.
Department of Conservation senior ranger Dave Rogers confirmed the Plymouth track was not actively managed by DOC for public use. ‘‘It has been officially closed for the best part of 30 years but used regularly by locals to access the area, and also used for our pest animal control programme,’’ he said.
Rogers said much of Plymouth Rd, which extended above Carrington Rd and continued to the Egmont National Park boundary, was unformed road reserve.
In a written statement, New Plymouth District Council infrastructure manager David Langford said access to Egmont National Park remained open via a paper road from Carrington Rd to the National Park boundary.
Langford said the landowner could not legally restrict access.‘‘The public has the right to access the paper road but we would ask people using the paper road to respect private property in the area,’’ he said.
The landowner who erected the sign was not available for comment.