Tararua District Council changes rules to pave way for Dannevirke Car Club events

The Dannevirke Car Club has been given a shorter, 16-week timeframe to apply for temporary road closures for their events

The Tararua District Council has changed its rules to help the Dannevirke Car Club to stay on the road.

Earlier, district councillor Shirley Hull had put the skids under the car club's request for a road closure for an event in June, saying the roads concerned were taking a huge traffic load since the closure of the Manawatu Gorge.

The club had requested closure of Tararua Rd, but Mrs Hull had said with adjoining Ballance and Ballance Valley Roads so busy she wasn't happy.

"To use this road (Tararua Rd) for racing and rallying doesn't fit with me this year," she said.

"This event will start and stop on Ballance and Ballance Valley roads."

At February's TDC meeting the matter was left to lie on the table.

But an approach from the car club has since seen the event given approval, with the council also agreeing to a shorter notification time allowed for the local car club events. Council's policy is that applications must be submitted six months before an event for a temporary road closure.

The condition was imposed to give council adequate time to consider the requested closure and any potential impact. In a briefing workshop on February 28 members of the Dannevirke Car Club asked council to reconsider the timeframe and they were granted a 16-week timeframe.

However, Mrs Hull was unhappy with the decision and asked for her dissenting vote to be recorded.

"Time after time applications would come in and we didn't have time to consider all the impacts and this put council in a tight position," she said. "We put the timeframe out to six months for a reason."

Tararua District Mayor Tracey Collis said when an organisation came to council and presented the issues, she would be happy to listen.