Sainsbury Road Reserve Management Plan

Background

Sainsbury Road Reserve is a 41 hectare recreation reserve located in Pirongia. The reserve is prominently used for horse riding and mountain biking. The Ngaparierua Stream and stream corridor run through the reserve. The reserve is mostly grassed in pasture, with small pockets of native vegetation, over grown gorse and old pine trees.

A focus group was established including representatives from mana whenua, the horse riding community, the current lessee, the mountain biking community, the Taiea te Taiao Ecological Corridor project plus a councillor and someone from the sustainable forestry sector. The aim of the focus group is to ensure the draft reserve management plan is developed in line with community aspirations and mana whenua values.

The draft reserve management plan will go to the Service Delivery Committee in March 2023 for adoption for public consultation.

From there the community had the opportunity to make submissions on the plan. Council considered the submissions and adopted the RMP.

2015 - 2016

We started development on a reserve management plan for the reserve in 2015, where an initial phase of community engagement was undertaken on three landscape plan options.

The feedback in 2015 and 2016 on the draft landscape plan provided council with a clear direction on the community’s aspirations for the reserve. There were 74 individual responses received during public engagement, with majority of submitters supporting Option A.

Option A, has the highest indigenous vegetation cover. This option includes 28 percent open space, 19 percent native forestry, 36.5 percent conservation strips of protected forest and 6.8 percent exotic forestry.

The community were generally supportive of an option that would mean majority of the reserve would be revegetated with native species and provide a range of recreational opportunities at the reserve.

At the start of 2016, council initiated the preparation of a landscape concept plan based on Option A, and the development of the plan was paused due limitation of staff resourcing.

Key Documents

• Draft Landscape Concept Plan, Option A
• Strategic Planning & Policy Committee Agenda, 19 June 2023
• Service Delivery Committee Agenda, 21 June 2022 (page 48)

For any questions and further information please contact sainsburyreserve@waipadc.govt.nz.