Poison drop shuts YMCA lodge

Allen Parker of the Shakespear Open Sanctuary Society and former Auckland Regional Councillor Sandra Coney discuss the pest fence. Photo / Greg Bowker

One of Auckland's top lodges for school children will be closed for five months because of worries about aerial drops of poison rat baits in surrounding parkland.

The YMCA Shakespear Lodge at Whangaparaoa Peninsula was last year's winner of the Outdoors NZ Best Facility Award and usually hosts 50 to 80 children and parents at a time.

Shakespear Regional Park is to have 16.5 tonnes of poisoned cereal bait applied after a pest-proof fence was built to form a sanctuary for native bird species.

A 500ha area will be closed from July 1 until mid-December.

The lodge is on land leased from the Auckland Council, and the council's regional development and operations committee resolved on Tuesday to close the sanctuary area to the lodge's clients.

YMCA chief executive Peter Fergusson said the lodge was booked for 11 months a year. In the planning stage it had hoped to keep the lodge open except for a routine winter maintenance closure.

"But the general concerns about what's happening means the council is a little risk-averse and the unfortunate downside is that our lodge and activities will close down.

"It will be short-term pain for the schools, but it will be a neat thing to take kids to see the native birds returning."

Mr Fergusson said the YMCA had transferred some school bookings to its two other camps but would suffer a financial loss from losing the use of its most popular camp.

Friends of the Earth spokesman Bob Tait said the society decided not to appeal to the Environment Court after talks with then ARC parks chairwoman Sandra Coney and senior ARC officials. The council agreed to more stringent consent conditions, including that no children would be exposed to the poison while it was in the park.