An Ōpōtiki resident faced with navigating the town via scooter has had enough of overgrown verges and horse droppings blocking footpaths.

Ōpōtiki District Council says it is doing the best it can under budget constraints but the responsibility for maintaining the verges lies with property owners.

Rob Emmott has had to rely on a knee scooter to get around town for the past five months because of an injury.

Six months ago, he fell and broke his ankle in three places. He has been told it requires further surgery and several more months on his scooter.

He said just getting to the shop was difficult when you were reliant on footpaths.

“Elderly people with walkers or scooters, mums with pushchairs and prams, children walking to school, deserve the dignity of having footpaths that can be used.”

Mr Emmott said the overgrown footpaths put people in danger because many found it easier to walk or scooter on the road.

The area that bothers him the most is on the corner of Windsor and Ford streets.

The house at 105 Ford Street was removed from the property late last year after a fire some years ago made it uninhabitable. The section, believed to belong to a person who lives outside the district, is overgrown and unkempt and there is no footpath on the other side of the road.

Mr Emmott asked the council to fix the issue and followed up the request with direct communication to the relevant department manager. This resulted in the council promptly spraying the edges of the footpath with herbicide.

However, physical removal of horse dung and weeds is necessary to make the footpath fully usable.

“I’ve been told it is the current policy of council not to maintain sidewalks for this sort of growth encroaching onto the paths.

“This is not a wealthy part of town, but we pay rates. We’re entitled to a decent footpath to walk along. The people who make these decisions clearly don’t use the footpaths. They just drive right past them.”

Mr Emmott said he would also like the council to do more to ensure horse riders were encouraged not to ride on the footpaths.

“They should be riding their horses on the road,” he said.

With Ōpōtiki township’s long-term issue with horses wandering loose on the streets, it is unlikely this would be an entirely effective solution.

Ōpōtiki Mayor David Moore said he was sympathetic to Mr Emmott’s assessment of the state of the footpath. However, the council was focusing on the basics to keep rates as low as possible.

He encourages the community to get in touch during next year’s Long-Term Plan process to let the council know the issues they want addressed, the projects they want to see carried out, and the costs they want the council to carry.

“In this year’s Annual Plan, we have continued our commitment from the 2024-34 Long-Term Plan where our community was clear about their priorities – ‘focus on the basics’, ‘manage costs carefully’, and ‘defer non-urgent spending where possible’.

“This is reflected in a lower than projected rates increase of 8.9 percent. Achieving this reduced rate took a lot of work, which included reducing services to reduce cost.

“That aside, council staff are doing what they can within their budget constraints. However, the council does not maintain the grass verge between the footpath and the road in residential urban areas. This maintenance is usually the responsibility of the adjacent property owner.”

The property in question is directly across the road from Central Kids Ōpōtiki Kindergarten.

Head teacher Kelly Robertson said it would be nice to have a well-maintained footpath for the local families.

“I have seen some locals doing the job themselves.”

She has seen a woman who lives further along the street spend over an hour with a weedeater on another nearby piece of footpath recently that was not her own.

She said roaming dogs were also an issue for people on foot.

“One of our staff had to escort an elderly lady home recently because she was too scared to walk along Ford Street to get to her home.”