Thursday 8 March 2007

Copeland: You cannot be serious David?!

United Future outdoor recreation spokesperson Gordon Copeland is dismayed at comments by National MP David Carter that the mapping of existing 'paper roads' is an unnecessary burden on taxpayers or ratepayers.

"The accurate mapping of existing unformed legal roads, known as 'paper roads', is fundamental to the legal right that the New Zealand public has to access the outdoors," said Mr Copeland.

"These roads are access-ways that are enshrined in law as available for use by the public just as any mapped or paved road is. To insinuate that it is a waste of money to map these roads properly and provide the New Zealand public with the information to use them is ridiculous.

"I wonder whether Mr Carter has actually read the Walking Access Consultation Panel Report."

Section 8.5.4 of the report states: The Panel is advised that it is technically straightforward to overlay the network of legal roads from the LINZ cadastral database over the 1:50 000 topographical maps published by LINZ. This gives a reasonable indication of the location of unformed legal roads as the legal roads that do not closely align with the formed roads on the topographical maps can be assumed to be unformed legal roads.

"The provision of better information on access will actually work in everyone's favour; farmers, recreational users and the general public," concluded Mr Copeland.

ENDS

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