Hikurangi Trail Ride Extension Project
For a number of years the HBA have been on-again/off-again proceeding with an initial inquiry to WDC about holding fundraising trail rides on a WDC owned piece of land located off Gomez Road, Hikurangi.
Over recent years there has been a lot of controversy surrounding this project, and the large amount of misinformation being circulated by people not involved with the project is continuing to cause ongoing issues.
This blog is to provide accurate information and facts on the project for the public to read so they know the correct details about HBA's current status on the proposed plan.
In late 2021, a Community Development Manager was employed by HBA to drive a number of projects that needed attention to progress further. The CDM started working on the Gomez land proposal and as a result a 10km trail ride was developed on private farm land. With multiple community consultations a number of proposals were created and whittled down over the year until a final "bottom line" proposal was submitted to council for consideration in September 2022.
The final proposal (proposal number #4) which is what is currently sitting with council awaiting consultation, can be found here:
In 2021 WDC allocated $30,000 from the Long Term Plan to the HBA for gaining resource consent to go through the appropriate processes of inquiry and application for holding the trail rides. Since 2021 two other community entities have become interested in the land in discussion and have also submitted proposals to WDC for consideration. HBA has discussed the other proposals and in general is supportive of multiple ideas working alongside each other for the benefit of the community. A copy of one of the other proposals can be found HERE. At the time of publishing this blog it is not known of the privacy status of the remaining proposal from the third interested entity.
The CDM welcomes any queries in relation to this project, alternatively you can keep up with progress details via the "Hikurangi CDM" facebook page. For direct contact, you can text 021616755 or email admin@hikurangi.co.nz