Cycle trail to go ahead

Southland District Council is planning to start construction work on the Mossburn-Lumsden to Kingston section of the Around the Mountain Cycle Trail this year. Councillor John Douglas said Council has been granted resource consent for that section of the trail and so will be getting building consent for the bridges and structures and go out for construction tenders in two months.

"We are not going to appeal the commissioner's decision to decline the section between the Mount Nicholas Road bridge to, and including, the proposed Oreti suspension bridge.

"However, we are not abandoning that as it would be the jewel in the crown of a cycle trail."

Council is going to bring in a tourism consultant to look at the economic impact in terms of usage of the alternative routes, as well as investigating what it could do to mitigate the environmental concerns that meant the route down the Oreti was declined.

"We have decided that this trail is important enough to Southland ratepayers and residents that instead of building the section through Mavora first and then moving on to the Mossburn-Lumsden to Kingston section, we will reverse that," Cr Douglas said.

The Government funding of $4 million will be spent on the first section to be built and should cover the work from Lumsden to Kingston.