The Devon St West Cycleway - What happens when you don't listen to your Community

This is a story about the Devon St West Cycleway. Who didn’t want it, who didn’t fund it, how it went ahead anyway, which councillors voted for it, and a presentation to the NPDC about the flow on effects of their decision.

This started back in late 2023 with a consultation process for the Devon Street West, St Aubyn Street and Upper Merrilands Cycleway concepts.

A consultation for Devon St West had street plans available from Barrett Road to Morley Street and the residents in the Blagdon part of the cycleway were notified as the “safety” work there would start first.

Some of these folks were very vocal about NOT wanting:

• The removal of many carparks, outside businesses and homes.
• In-lane bus stops – that concept was a bus stopped in the middle of the road for passengers to get on and off, and the cars just waited behind while that happened.
• And major concerns about the narrow roads and the ability for emergency vehicles to get through 2 narrow lanes full of traffic (waiting behind those buses).

A group was formed because of this consultation and thousands of flyers were delivered along all of these proposed routes.

Residents and business people who received these flyers actively replied to the Council consultation and told other people about it. A petition was set up on Change.Org.

By the end of the consultation process:

• 7,600 + people said NO to the cycleways.
• 1,500+ people said YES.

For every bit of feedback 5 MORE PEOPLE SAID NO than the people who said Yes.

The council voted – and the cycleways were adopted and approved.

Our flyer team was so disappointed and realised the NPDC was actively choosing to ignore the community.

Attached is the summary of the change.org petition update – showing you WHICH COUNCILLORS voted YES when the COMMUNITY told them NO. (There are 2 pages to the right of this story - make sure to click on the small page to see how all the concillors voted).

This cycleway was to be funded by the previous Labour Government’s Climate Change Emergency fund. There were about 7 people in our flyer team so we emailed our local MP and the New Coalition NZTA Minister. We were advised the Climate Change funding from NZTA had been withdrawn.

Celebration – this project won’t go ahead !!

BUT IT HAS - and the mess and inconvenience and questionable safety of the new system (according to affected businesses) is there for all to see who use this route.

So fast forward to 2025.

A group of residents who live along the part of the cycleway project that was completed last year have discovered what flow on effects come to the community when the NPDC says yes instead of no.

This group approached 2 councillors who requested a 5 minute slot for them to speak at a council meeting, and they approached us to see if we had any information to help their cause. Some of our team also went to the NPDC meeting.

On 18^th February they were given their 5 minute slot at a council meeting.

With this story we would like to make their 5 minute slot SO MUCH STRONGER by asking you to share this widely across our community.

This boosts the 5 minutes that CAN be ignored by the councillors at a meeting into something that lots of people understand is a consequence of the community not being listened to.

So what did this group of residents present to the NPDC on 18^th February ?

What a total lack of parking does to their property values, and how trying to sell a house in the middle of a cycleway being built makes it impossible to sell your home.

Real Estate Agents who have been involved with houses listed along this cycleway development have given some opinions on the effect on property values:

• A drop in value of properties has fallen by around $100,000 per property
• There is no parking on the street making it impossible to come to an open home. (A huge red flag to a potential buyer).
• Even if one person parks in the driveway, in one agent’s words “IT IS BLOODY DANGEROUS AND UNSAFE” to reverse out of the drive across the cycleway.
• From Blagdon to Morley St house numbers go from 280 to 546, approx. 266 houses. With a decrease in property value of approx. $100,000 per property that is a lost value of $26.6 million for this stretch of the cycleway. (That’s about half the length of this overall cycleway).

The gentleman who presented with the 5 minute allocated spot also mentioned:

• The installation of traffic lights at Lorna St has created traffic chaos and there has been an increase in nose to tail accidents.
• The Lorna St lights seem to work on a timing system so even without any traffic on Lorna St cars have a red light – even in the early hours of the morning.
• He asked if any councillors have taken the time to sit on Devon St West and observe the huge amount of traffic on the road and observe how many cyclists are using the cycleway – especially how many school kids, which this cycleway was supposedly built for. (A clue here, very few)
• Where will drivers pull over on this now narrow road when emergency vehicles need to get through ?
• What happens with multiple tradies working at a person’s house ? No parking and 4 – 5 vans there to do the work ?

A number of these comments were also a part of the 3-4 days of submissions which opposed this cycleway ever being started.

2 quotes from this man’s presentation to the Mayor and Councillors:

“It seems because it doesn’t affect you, you don’t care”

“Only a 9.9% rates increase, yeah right, a great Tui billboard Ad”.

Have other people travelling this route into town also noticed the distinct lack of cyclists on this cycleway at any time of the day ?

One of our supporters also pointed out to us that the footpaths in front of these properties had been upgraded around 2 years before the cycleway started. These perfectly adequate and “young” footpaths were ripped out and widened for this project. This ratepayer could not fathom why there would be this kind of waste implemented by the Council.

We mentioned in the Race Stand Removal item that the NPDC run many projects and that story was the tip of one iceberg.

This is another project, and it is the tip of another iceberg. There are many more projects the NPDC is running. How many icebergs are there heading our way with our rates bills ?

A little bit about where we come from as a group of volunteers.

Some of the people involved with our Ratepayers Alliance group today joined because of the involvement with this 2023 NPDC consultation process. It was so clear to see that the community’s voices were being ignored and we wanted to help other people realise that, and we want to change that.

Others in our team have been in other situations where they have also been ignored by the NPDC. We know a lot of our community are also saying they are being ignored.

This is why we want to be a strong voice for New Plymouth ratepayers and renters.

This is why we want to work with others in our community to get our concerns heard, and why we want people to understand that they need to vote differently at this year’s election.

P.S

People may have noticed we said the Climate Change Emergency funding from NZTA was withdrawn and may wonder how this project has now been paid for. So do we, so this story hasn’t quite come to an end just yet.

Please tell lots of people about this story and ask them to visit our website, or Facebook Page.

And if you feel like it – we have been seeing a lot of comments on various Facebook pages about the dislike of the mess created by this cycleway  - Send off an e-mail to the Mayor and Councillors and let them know you do not like what they have done, and are continuing to build, all the way to Morley Street.

The Council email addresses:

Council

neil.holdom@npdc.govt.nz

amanda.clintongohdes@npdc.govt.nz

anneka.carlson@npdc.govt.nz

bali.haque@npdc.govt.nz

bryan.vickery@npdc.govt.nz

david.bublitz@npdc.govt.nz

dinnie.moeahu@npdc.govt.nz

gordon.brown@npdc.govt.nz

harry.duynhoven@npdc.govt.nz

marie.pearce@npdc.govt.nz

max.brough@npdc.govt.nz

murray.chong@npdc.govt.nz

sam.bennett@npdc.govt.nz

tewaka.mcleod@npdc.govt.nz

 

Executive Team

gareth.green@npdc.govt.nz

jacqueline.baker@npdc.govt.nz

bernie.odonnell@npdc.govt.nz

helena.williams@npdc.govt.nz

sarah.downs@npdc.govt.nz

kathryn.scown@npdc.govt.nz

 

Remember to send us an email if you contact the Council, so we can remind the Council how many people don’t agree with what they have created with this project.

Our e-mail address is:

ratepayersnp@gmail.com