The Dunedin City Council has voted to remove the Warrington rocks, but only after some councillors rounded on staff over the handling of the affair.
Councillors at yesterday's full council meeting voted 12-3 to remove the rocks by May 1, reopening an unformed legal track to Blueskin Bay for vehicles.
The decision came after councillors heard the rocks had been placed there illegally, exposing the council to an expensive legal challenge if the track remained closed to vehicles.
Cr Aaron Hawkins was among three councillors opposed to the move, and criticised staff for providing incomplete information.
Councillors had asked for traffic and ecological issues to be assessed, but staff had commissioned a new traffic study while relying only on a pre-existing, ''high-level'' ecological report on environmental issues.
The ecological report concluded Blueskin Bay was not of ''high or outstanding natural character''.
Cr Hawkins said staff had been given ''very clear'' directions, and ''quite frankly I find this behaviour embarrassing''.
Council staff maintained the ecological issues required more work, and would form part of an environmental strategy being drafted.
That wasn't good enough for Cr Jinty MacTavish, who remained ''fairly astounded'' by the report.
Cr Lee Vandervis said the advice clearly favoured removing the rocks, while Cr Hilary Calvert said the council should ''do the right thing''.
''Following the law is the right thing.''
Other councillors spoke against aspects of the process, while voting to approve it, while Waikouaiti Coast Community Board chairman Gerard Collings - speaking during public forum - made a last-minute plea to retain the rocks.
Cr Andrew Noone, the Waikouaiti Coast-Chalmers ward's only councillor, also opposed the decision, saying ''nothing has changed'' since the rocks were installed in 2008.
''There is still a safety issue . . . and the feedback I get from locals is the majority want the rocks to stay.''
