Issue date
Yachting New Zealand have been leading the advocacy work alongside clubs and the Northern Regional Council to protect a host of bays for the continued use by boaties.
(Members of the Whagarei Cruising Club and the Northland Regional Council go through the Northland bays.)
Yachting New Zealand participation and development manager Andrew Clouston recently travelled to meetings at both the Mangonui and Whangarei Cruising Clubs, which were attended by council officials and long-standing club members. This came about after it was discovered a number of significant bays had been missing from an initial draft of the regional plan.
A new 10-year Northland regional plan is likely to come into force in 2018. A draft of the plan is expected in August when public submissions are welcomed and it's hoped a number of boaties will offer feedback.
At the recent meetings, all of the bays from Cape Reinga to Mangawhai were reviewed and coded according to their signficance to boaties. They were looked at according to their suitability as anchorages for boaties both for recreational activity and as a safe place to provide shelter and storm anchorage.
Part of that is to give those bays protection from structures that prevent boaties from using them to anchor, such as jetties, moorings or marine farms. These protections are expected to be built into the new regional plan.
"It went really well," Clouston said. "It was a really valuable exercise and an eye-opener for the council. It was a good opportunity for the council to work alongside boaties and club members and also a really meaningful way for the clubs to engage in the process.
"There was widespread agreement [about the bays]. I have to take my hat off to the council because they were really open to the process."
