The overgrown alleyway is in Fordlands between Meadowbank Crescent and Irene Place.
The overgrown alleyway is in Fordlands between Meadowbank Crescent and Irene Place.
Two Rotorua teenagers have not been able to walk their usual route to school as they have been getting “scratched up” by a “completely overgrown” alleyway.
Rotorua Lakes Council has since sought to clear the alleyway, describing its state as “unacceptable”.
The teenagers live in Fordlands with their mother Susan Winwood, who said she believed the maintenance of the alleyway had been neglected because of the suburb it was in.
The alleyway is located between Meadowbank Cresent and Irene Place.
Winwood’s two 17-year-olds were students at Rotorua Girls’ High School and typically used the alleyway every day to get to school, but the scrub grew to such a point that now “they can’t walk through it”, she said.
Winwood, who has lived in Fordlands for 15 years, believed the state of the alleyway was “absolutely disgusting” as it was “completely overgrown”.
In her view: “It’s actually quite a safe alleyway in that you can see from one side to the other. It’s safe for the kids to walk through, and now it’s not safe.
“It’s full of bamboo and brambles - it’s just not a matter of mowing it.
“But it’s the fact that it looks awful - there’s no way it should be that bad when it’s [the] council’s responsibility.”
In her view, the alleyway had been getting worse “since Christmas”.
Susan Winwood believes the area has been neglected because it is in Fordlands.
Winwood said she did not see “anything as bad” elsewhere in Rotorua.
In her opinion: “I honestly just think they don’t care about it ... and that’s horrible to say, but I just think our area tends to get less. I look at the trees down Ford Rd, and they’re all cut and they all look ugly.
Winwood also said, in her view: “I just think it feels like we’re being unfairly treated because it’s Fordlands. And that might not be the case, but that’s how it feels.”
She understood there were areas in the city with overgrown grass, as well as mowing issues. But the alleyway was “more than a mowing issue”, she said.
Meadowbank Cres resident Holly Tamai-Werahiko said she did not use the alleyway herself, but she had seen it.
“It is a concern - it is badly overgrown. You drive past it and you can see it. And I know there are some schoolchildren that need to use it.”
Asked if she believed the area had been neglected because it was in Fordlands, Tamai-Werahiko said, in her view, it was a “possibility”.
Fordlands Community Centre manager Ana Phillips said the centre received a phone call last week from a resident about the alleyway.
“I’ve heard someone had gone through and cut bushes and just left them all ... and then [the] council obviously hasn’t been around to clear it out.
“That usually is remedied by a call to them.”
Rotorua Lakes Council manager of active and engaged communities Rob Pitkethley said records showed the council was notified the alleyway was overgrown in December.
Asked what kind of backlog, if any, there was for the maintenance of alleyways such as the one in Fordlands, Pitkethley said all alleyways had been mowed, “however, there is a small backlog where additional work is required, such as tree and hedge trimming”.
