Locals left to clear beach-party mess

Locals are fed up with having to clean up beach rubbish.

Ocean Beach residents say they are fed up with having to clean up rubbish and broken bottles left on the beach after rowdy parties.

Rupert Newbold, who has lived in the area for 25 years, went to sleep at about 8.30pm on Friday to the sound of "yahooing" and in the morning walked through smashed glass, cardboard boxes and rubbish while heading out for a surf.

"I could hear voices, yahooing and cars going down the beach [that night]. I'm all for people having a bit of fun but it's the mess that really frustrates me - especially the broken glass," he said.

The Friday night party is the latest in a string of messy parties since Guy Fawkes, said Mr Newbold.

"We've had stuff like this happen in the past but in the 2015/16 period we've had a few. In the end it's the locals who've had to clean up the mess and finding glass in the sand is really hard."

He said the mess from Friday's party covered about 100m sq of the beach.

"There were empty alcohol bottles, cardboard boxes, cigarettes. There was only one guy there from the party who helped to clean it up."

Whangarei District Council bylaws state no person shall consume liquor within 300m inland of the high tide mark. Mr Newbold said the party-goers were within that boundary.

The Friday night party ended with off-duty lifeguards treating a person for concussion after a fight in the carpark. Whangarei Heads Surf Lifesaving Club Captain Julian Pitman was one of the lifeguards staying at the clubhouse.

"There was about 20 to 25 people. We could hear the noise down the beach and at about 2am it came to our attention there was a party in the lower carpark. There had been a scuffle and we treated one person for concussion and ambulance attended," he said.

Police were contacted at 8pm on Friday about people drinking in the carpark but it is unclear if officers attended.