Hey everyone, Mountainbike Tauranga is in need of help from the greater mountainbike community right about now. Why? I hear you ask - well let me explain.....

For the past two years our club has been working towards securing an area of around 350 hectares in the newly formed TECT All Terrain Park, that sits halfway between Tauranga and Rotorua. This park was envisaged to cater towards many different sporting interests, including (according to the website) "mountain biking, rallying, motocross, firearm sports, 4x4, equestrian, tramping and orienteering." We have several members of the club who have dedicated hundreds of hours of their time following the procedures asked of us by Western Bay of Plenty District Council and Tauranga City Council - obtaining an MOU, developing an in-depth management plan and creating highly detailed maps of the area we wanted to develop (believe it or not, our mapping is by far much more accurate and detailed than the councils' maps) including around 100km of trails of all grades, picnic and BBQ area, skills area, pump track, and a dirt jump area.

We have just recently obtained a grant from the Tauranga Round Table (thank you VERY kindly) that we were to put towards new trail tools and machine time to start cutting the initial trails for the mountainbiking area of the park.

You will note I used "were" in that sentence....

I have just received an e-mail from our Park Development Team Leader (Marty R, very fine and dedicated man that he is) informing me that due to lobbying by another user group, who have, up until now, had NO involvement in the development of the park, our area has been reallocated to them - not only that, but the decision was made without ANY consultation of the appointed park manager, who has been given the job of organising the park's user groups!

To say I am gutted is an understatement.

How can you help us? Well, what we are hoping is that the decision can be reversed, but to have that happen we NEED support from as much of the mountainbike community as humanly possible.

If you could spare 10 minutes to send an e-mail to me at info@mtbtauranga.co.nz letting the councils know that you support the work of MTB Tauranga, and you would be outraged if a carefully planned MTB park was to be binned in favour of a sport that has a much smaller following than mountainbiking, much less in terms of attracting tourism to the area, and a much larger environmental footprint.

Thanks for your support in advance.

Steve, MTB Tauranga.

Nice one western bay of plenty council

Oh what the shit what the shit what the shit! So this has gone over Rics head as well? How does this fit in with that whole area of the park being non motorised / low noise? Where can I find out more about who/how/why/when the desicion was made? Whos car do I need to torch?

you need to get this int o the media. get John Key on his bike and such. Its a freakin' outrage is what it is.

WTF!

Who is the other user group, and who are they sleeping with to get this sort of thing to happen?? Yep, put it out there into the main stream media start up a hallabalu!!

Trail wrote:WTF!

Who is the other user group, and who are they sleeping with to get this sort of thing to happen?? Yep, put it out there into the main stream media start up a hallabalu!!

The other "user groups" though I prefer to use the term abuser groups,
They only took an interest in the area of Tect park in the last 3-6 months after we had our agreement/understanding with the Tect park in what seemed to be final drafting stages.
I agree, something stinks, Ric on the Western BOP council should not be the one we direct our rage at, find out whoever has gone above the powers that be, and expose them.
I for one have lost a lot of faith in the council that have been giving our user group (Associated wirh Mountain bike Tauranga club) a real run around for the last year as we've been finalising our submissions.
It would be a shame and a waste of two years, and a lot of time and effort gone up in smoke
I agree with you Zane, someone's sleeping with someone to have this go over the head of Ric the park manager, who has been all in favour of promoting the riding area since the start.

I'd like to see how the media would react to this, and make a few heads roll too!

so who IS this other group? trampers, gardeners, tiddlywink players?

RHR_Rob wrote:so who IS this other group? trampers, gardeners, tiddlywink players?

trail bikers - said so initially but got editted out (dunno why - name and shame)

so presumably someone in the local moto-x club hs good connections...

RHR_Rob wrote:so who IS this other group? trampers, gardeners, tiddlywink players?

I'm getting the impression they are a motorised user group. . . . . .

beaten to the punch

there is politik involved in this - someone in the know please lay the cards on the table.

I don't know the full details (yet) Rob, Thorg
I'm guessing that sometime in the next week we (Mountain bike Tauranga) - which I'm on the committee for, will be getting together and discussing what our course of action will be, and I can tell you that we won't be taking this sitting down!
but when I do find out more details, I will keep you up to date.
Other groups that have expressed interest in the Tect park area are:
Motorsport, 4wd club(s), Moto cross clubs, walkers, horse owners, shooting clubs, to list a few.
- It could be any of them, but my suspicion is that it's either the Mx clubs, or motor sport clubs.
As far as I was aware (and I could be wrong about this) but I was under the impression that none of the other user groups were as far progressed as the Mtb Tauranga club with the proposed memorandum of understanding (MOU) than what we (Mtb tauranga) were.

How about setting up a standardised letter for us to put our names to and submit? Mainly cause I am not quite sure what to put in it.

Thats rather shit.
Someone will have kids/themselves that want to use the area. Then again that is IMO.

way_downsouth has a plan

I think that Steve (Barks) or Marty, who have had a lot more involvement than I have, and therefore know a lot more about the whole situation, are working on something, I'm offering my services where I can if either of them need a hand.

Cars suck arse !
Things with motors suck arse !
I like to make vrooooom vrooom noises when I ride my bike

do you have any good looking girl/boys in the club that may be willing to (how should we say) help out with persueding the appropriate council members.
can we say that on here?