Storms eat up Muriwai - action plan backed

By WAYNE THOMPSON

Violent Tasman Sea storms are eating away Muriwai Beach at the rate of 1.5m a year - threatening the surf club buildings and popular carparks behind the dunes.

Erosion at the main access to the beach - the southern carpark - is such that the Auckland Regional Council's insurers will no longer cover the replacement of the stairway down the dunes to the beach.

Several stairways have been swept away.

The Muriwai Golf Club has shifted its links farther inland to avoid wind-blown sand smothering the greens.

Beachwalkers see the power of erosion - it has exposed and undermined piles for the surf lifesavers' watchtower and the township's stormwater pipes.

Experts have told the council to give up trying to build barriers to protect the main carpark's base and that stabilising the dunes is the best way to slow erosion.

ARC planning commissioner Dorothy Wakeling agrees with the natural approach in her report on how to save the character of the slender and vulnerable coastal regional park.

The council adopted her recommendations yesterday.

She says it is necessary and realistic to plan for moving services back as they gradually need replacement and to ban building within a 150m-wide erosion hazard zone where dunes might be saved.

The surf clubhouse and often-packed public carparks are within 50m of the toe of the foredunes.

However, the commissioner says that while the surf club tower on the dunes will need to be shifted landward, there are good safety reasons to let the club stay on its site until erosion monitoring shows it is in "imminent danger".

Opponents of draft plans felt that changes were premature considering the uncertain pace of beach erosion.

However, while the commissioner wants the council to slow down on some proposed changes, she wants some ideas to go ahead.

These include the redesign of the park entrance road, building a new arrival area and parking near the shop, relocation of the northern carpark, relocation of the surf club road and withdrawal of part of the seaward face of the southern carpark.

Sand swept through blowouts in the dunes into the northern carpark and half of it will need to be sacrificed to stabilise the dune.

The commissioner says she appreciates public concern about the future of the park camping ground because there are few places left for inexpensive holidays in the region.

She calls for a halt to a plan to drive a new access road through prime camping spots to a carpark at the base of the dunes.

ARC parks chairman Bill Burrill said the commissioner made several significant changes to council plans as a result of community consultation.

They could be achieved without an extra cost on ratepayers.

Beyond the five-year blueprint, he said, alternative parking would be provided in the north and an alternative beach access road would be sealed.

Long-time Muriwai resident Ian Phillips said last night that the council's record of planning and building at Muriwai did not inspire confidence.

"They've done so many stupid things out here that I say let's not rush it.

"Let's just make sure what they're going to do is good for thearea."