Club 'stoked' at money for trail work

GREAT HELP: The Rotorua Mountain Bike Club has received funding to clear and maintain trails like this one in the Whirinaki Forest. PHOTO/FILE

The Rotorua Mountain Bike Club is "stoked" to have received almost $15,000 in government funding to upgrade and maintain trails around the district.

Yesterday, Trail Fund NZ announced it had granted about $100,000 to a variety of volunteer-led organisations to support their work on trails around the country.

The money is to be used for mountain-bike accessible track maintenance, upgrades and signage, and was made possible by a $700,000 grant from the Department of Conservation's Community Conservation Partnership Fund.

The Rotorua Mountain Bike Club was granted $14,560 for trail clearing and maintenance around Rainbow Mountain, Okataina and the Moerangi/Whirinaki Trail.

Club president Gregg Brown said the news was well received by members.

"It's really good and obviously we were stoked the Government recognises the importance of these trails and is prepared to stump up and help the groups who use them and understand them.

"We'll be using the money for trail clearing, drainage and maintenance as long as the funding allows us to do that."

He said some of the work was done by volunteers but the funding took this to "another level".

Trail Fund NZ chairman Ben Wilde said the grants were geared towards giving "backcountry" users greater ownership of the "facilities they care passionately about. It was great to have so many applicants keen to take advantage of the opportunity, and we were pleased to fund or partly-fund the majority of the requests."