BMRA

The purpose of this meeting was to follow up on October 2015 meetings about residents’ concerns with Cycling in the Valley.

Present were residents, representatives from cycling clubs and Warren Harris from Police Roading.  Wayne Guppy extended his apologies and Lachlan Wallach from Upper Hutt City Council did not attend.  Big thanks to Angela McLeod, our local City Councillor who again chaired the meeting.

Proceedings:

After brief introductions Craig summarised the results of the survey – Cycling through the Valley.  An invitation to residents of Blue Mountains, Whitemans Valley and Mangaroa to participate in this survey was extended by way of notices on the local notice boards, various Facebook Groups and the BMRA newsletter.  At the time of the meeting 36 residents had responded.

Overall the responses to the survey questions were positive with the most pressing issues being bunch riding and toileting.  Due to the number of participants the BMRA decided to continue with the survey for another week.  Wednesday evening (25^th) saw responses of 87 residents, the results remain similar.  Results can be viewed at https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-JNJ32VHS/.

Warren Harris from Roading Police filled us in on the results from the Police’s visits to the valley between November 2015 and January 2016.  From a total of 60 visits the only things they recorded was a problem with one vehicle and two horse riders.  They made visits at the times of scheduled cycling events and noted that there were no issues at those times.

Neither the City Council or Police reported to the meeting any notifications of unauthorised events or reports from the residents or local businesses unsafe cycling behaviour on the road.

Significant discussion was held on notifying residents and businesses of events.  The majority of people attending the meeting felt that keeping the community informed by way of Facebook posts, signs on the Noticeboards and via the BRMA newsletter had gone a long way to improving the situation throughout the valley over the past summer.  Considerable discussion was held on whether or not Facebook was a convenient way for cycle clubs to communicate with residents and businesses.   One cycle club, Wellington Masters has decided not to communicate in this way and has indicated they will let residents know of their events by way of public notice in the Upper Hutt Leader.  It was pointed out that this was not in line with the Upper Hutt City Council guidelines on running an event (particularly cycling in Whiteman’s Valley) and that the lines of communication trialled over the last six months had been working very well.

Wellington Masters requested that Angela McLeod take the issue of providing a public toilet back to the Upper Hutt City Council as they believe a three hour ride is too long to expect cyclists not to require toilets.

Mike from Silverstream Lions let us know that last November was the 10^th time the Tour de Whiteman’s had been held.  From the funds raised $6,500 had been donated to Te Omanga Hospice and $1,600 to support Chelsea Edwards with a recent swimming competing in Australia.  Detail of the responses to the survey question regarding Tour de Whitemans will be passed onto the Silverstream Lions.

A reminder:

If you see dangerous behaviour on our roads, report it to the police.

If you want to report an un-notified event, phone or email the Upper Hutt City Council – (04) 527 2169, askus@uhcc.govt.nz,

Don’t forget winter is about to set in, we have road works and soon black ice to contend with – stay safe and be patient on the road.

– Anne Rainey, BMRA Committee