Meanwhile, in Tararua Country....

Support grows for Tararua cycleway

By PIERS FULLER - Wairarapa News | 3:22PM - Wednesday, 21 April 2010

Northern Wairarapa is throwing its support behind a proposed cycleway through the Tararua Ranges from Shannon to Eketahuna.

Representatives from the Horowhenua District Council (HDC) met a group in Eketahuna recently and their ideas were well-received by those in the southern Tararua district ward.

Eketahuna Community Board chairman John Harman said the cycleway could bring all sorts of benefits to the area and, although the cost of a feasibility study is quite high, it would show the Government that the board was serious about going ahead with the trans-Tararua bicycle route.

The HDC has already done a lot of research on the project and it estimates that a comprehensive feasibility study would cost $60,000 to $80,000.

The territorial authority on the west coast is hoping that the Tararua District Council will give financial support to the study. Council chief executive Blair King was at the meeting.

The meeting attracted a range of people from the area who had an interest in the cycleway project, including farmers and homestay and hotel operators, as well as those from the tourism industry.

Mr Harman said there was widespread support, even from farmers whose land the trail may traverse.

"The people that were there were very enthusiastic about it. They were very keen that it should take place," he said.

"The meeting was unanimous that, if it was possible for the Horowhenua and Tararua councils to proceed with the feasibility study, that they should do so," he said.

Despite not being one of the 13 proposals chosen to be funded as part of the New Zealand Cycle Trail project, backers of the Shannon-Eketahuna link are not to be deterred. "Even though they did miss out on the application for the Government to support funding for the project, they felt to do nothing was to, perhaps, wait forever," says Mr Harman.

The feeling at the meeting was that if they go ahead and do their own study they are more likely to be in a strong position to get the nod in the next phase of the national cycleway project.

"We felt that as cycleways got under way up and down the country, that the Government might look favourably at the initiative taken," he says.

The Horowhenua District Council's spokesman on the project, David Clapperton, says they are looking at this long term and they are confident they can achieve their goal.

The next step is to meet to form a steering committee to drive the project forward.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/wairarapa-news/3606706/Support-grows-for-cycleway