Fixing treacherous accessways up to owners

The state of some Dannevirke footpaths is causing concern for the growing number of mobility scooter users and pedestrians.

A recent survey of footpaths by Tararua District Council has shown 126 faults affecting pedestrians and mobility scooter users are within vehicle entranceways and landowners will have to pay to put them right.

The council didn't have maintenance responsibilities for these areas, but was receiving 12 customer requests a month associated with the hazards, Chris Chapman, manager of Tararua Alliance, told district councillors.

"It's not our footpaths which are defective, it's those driveways and we need to get action under way to address pedestrian concerns," he said.

District mayor Tracey Collis said the council received a large number of complaints, especially from the elderly, and she wanted landowners who would have to pay for remedial work to be able to spread their payments, with the council offering five-year loans to owners to fix defective urban vehicle entrance ways.

Councillor Shirley Hull said the hazardous driveway crossings affected all the community, as well as those on mobility scooters.

"The crossings can be downright dangerous," she said.

Roger Ramsden has been campaigning for better footpaths for mobility scooter users and has had problems, especially in Swinburn St, when riding his scooter from his Eileen Mary home.

"Some footpaths are treacherous. You've got to have your wits about you," he said.

"Some accessways run from properties out to the roadside, causing a hazard, and I'm aware of them," he said.

"But if I hit one of them hard, it would put me out of my scooter."

However, Chapman told councillors the cost of renewing a vehicle entranceway could present a challenge to some property owners, with a rough estimate of $2500, depending on the surface.

"Where accessways have been identified as being defective, or hazardous, we've sent letters to the landowners, but remediation has been mixed," he said.

Council chief executive Blair King said some owners were saying their access had been in its current condition for seven to 30 years.

King said a number of the crossings had been built more than 30 years ago, before the Tararua District Council had been formed.

"Taking appropriate action isn't their issue, they believe, but it's not council's either," he said.

The council was offering a payment scheme, but it had risks, King said.

"But this problem affects our reputation and so long as the payment system doesn't over-burden us . . . "

Deputy mayor Allan Benbow said he was "pretty uncomfortable about the demand put on property owners".

"We don't want to have to start chasing payments all the time, either," he said.

Raj Suppiah, the council's chief financial officer, said there was enough capacity in council's treasury to allow for five-year loans.

"We'll need to ensure we have legal documents in place through our debtors system, not rates, securing council's liability," he said.

Any work not completed by June 31, next year, would be undertaken by the council, with all associated costs recovered from the property owner and managed by the council's debt agency if left unpaid.