Brian Anderson The Western Front www.sunlive.co.nz

Outgoing chair of the Northern Harbour Recreation Forum, Selwyn Hill's message was clear when he said that the 2008 Recreational Strategy Plan has proved to be a complete waste of time and ratepayers' money.

This document showed so much promise and stood to be a vehicle and means to achieve so much but this has not proved to be the case.

This forum has been going for four and a half years, and Selwyn defied anyone to name one thing that has occurred to enhance the recreational facilities in the Northern Harbour. Selwyn listed a number of projects, many dating back at least 10 years, that he considered had only lined pockets of consultants. He acknowledged the good work on environmental issues culminating in the recent Tauranga Harbour symposium, which was highly successful, but he reminded the meeting that this is a recreation forum and part of a recreation strategy. Selwyn's frustrations include stalled work on boat ramps, dredging, parks, reserves and general communication problems with council. The Katikati Boating Club and Sea Scouts reported on their 17 years without a home and having to sail regattas in Rotoiti and Rotoma. The Western Bay of Plenty District mayor Ross Paterson sympathised but added to the growing list of frustrations by explaining the council's problems with delays and expense over resource consents.

The meeting could have ended within 30 minutes except the meeting-goers rose to Selwyn's challenge. Everyone in the room knew that a working forum of harbour users is important for efficient management of the harbour. Gradually, good stories were revealed. The forum's feedback on harbour signs, navigation beacons, safety issues and harbour problems, though not as spectacular as some of their bigger projects, has proved to be timely and has helped to improve the safety of the Northern Harbour for users. Some of the stalled projects were reviewed, and by the end of the evening, many of the communication problems were identified and addressed. Selwyn's challenge worked.

The Southern Harbour Recreation Forum has a totally different set of recreation problems to those of the Northern Harbour. There are 14 boating groups alone in the Tauranga Harbour and these have, because of their proximity, sorted out their boundaries, rules and regulations. But boaties are not the only users of the harbour. The recent controversy over the development of Pilot Bay highlights the plight of the other 90 per cent of harbour users who don't usually have any say in how their harbour is managed. These are the harbour users who should have had a voice through the recreation forum. The next forum meeting is a combined Northern and Southern Harbour meeting and it is important that those at the meetings start to listen to all of the people who value their harbour, and get their messages back to councils.