In a report to councillors, Blair King, the council's chief executive, said the area in front of the boating club has eroded severely, leaving an unsafe angle for vehicles to launch or to recover boats.
At a community meeting at Akitio, on October 30, attended by Mr King, John Barrow of Horizons Regional Council and councillor Keith Fenemore, ratepayers sought urgent action.
"They were very keen to proceed as a collective and through their chairman Peter Greatbach had already discussed options with the regional council. As part of those discussions they said iwi approval had been obtained and they were looking to both district and regional councils for support," Mr King said.
"This is an area where in the past there has been one drowning and regular rescues (informal and formal) undertaken by local fishermen after boats have been in trouble due to the narrow channel through the rocks, or challenging wave action."
Councillors were told there were three clear options.
One was to do nothing, but Mr King did not recommend this.
The second recommendation was for the council to fund $30,000 towards the boat ramp and the required resource consent.
Mr Greatbach, whose company has just built the council's new Pahiatua recycling centre, has indicated he is willing to project manage the work for the council and the community, if council funded the bulk of the work.
The third option was to only fund the resource consent for the boat ramp, but Mr King warned it is likely this option will not be viewed as the council supporting the project.
Mr King said he believed Horizons would work with the Tararua District Council if it holds the resource consent which it needs to acquire for the construction and maintenance of the launch ramp.
Councillors agreed to reprioritise it's stormwater capital programme in the 2015-16 long-term plan to enable $30,000 to be allocated towards the construction of the boat ramp at Akitio and they are not intending to seek cost recovery from the users of the ramp.
