Byron Scott says his children, Mac, George and Miles, are the motivation behind his dream to build a pump track in his community. Photo: LDR / supplied
A beachside community in south Auckland will finally have its first pump track after the project was approved by the local board.
Motivated by his three kids, Byron Scott has tried for years to build a pump track in the Maraetai and Beachlands area.
He had the expertise through his company Trail Pro and the funds, but lacked the space to bring his dreams of a 360 square metre asphalt pump track to life.
Until now.
At Tuesday's meeting, the Franklin Local Board approved Constellation Park as the location for the pump track, and Trail Pro's contribution to cover 80 percent of the costs.
Chairperson Angela Fulljames said the pump track was "much needed" as the community has not had a lot of great facilities delivered to it.
"At the time the Super City formed, basically some were forgotten really, in terms of planning, that's for certain," she said.
"And so because there wasn't planning, there wasn't the understanding of the needs of facilities for the community."
The board also agreed to cover additional funding to the project, to cover the build, tree planting and project management.
An asphalt pump track Scott and his company built in NZ. Photo: LDR / supplied
The board also approved that the ownership of the pump track would be transferred to Auckland Council, for maintenance and responsibilities.
"I appreciate it is always difficult when you live somewhere and you see what you got, and that changes. Change is something you can actually rely on, nothing stays the same.
"And Beachlands hasn't stayed the same."
Scott's company has built asphalt pump tracks and bike tracks in schools and for councils, all over the North Island.
"We just didn't have one in our community .. we have to travel to Papakura for a decent one," he said.
"And, our local skate park is very dilapidated and very basic; and needs an upgrade.
"As a father of three young boys, I find it sad that my boys have no where to go to skate or bike."
Trail Pro was putting up more than $100,000 for the project.
Public consultation results from February showed 77 percent out of the 326 submitters strongly supported the project.
Concerns from the 22 percent against the build were towards privacy, noise and anti-social behaviour.
David Barker from council parks said they could mitigate privacy concerns by planting trees.
"Anti-social behaviour, I would say that generally we find where we are getting activity in parks that's genuine, that tends to displace those who are in parks for anti-social acts," he said.
He said pump tracks were fairly new in Auckland, with about six in the region, and a few temporary tracks.
"They've always been well received by the communities we've put them into.
"The noise, planting won't make a big impact on noise but we do find that with pump tracks its a similar noise to noise generated by a playground.
It's an asphalt surface, so it won't be like a skate park where you get a big impact when a wheel hits concrete, he said.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
