Cr Fliss Butcher has taken drivers to task for the "vandalism" done to dunes around the city and picked Smaills Beach as an example.
When the Otago Daily Times visited yesterday, off-road vehicles had clearly attempted to drive into the dunes, dislodging flora.
Cr Butcher said it was illegal for the vehicles to be there and she encouraged residents to note numberplates and ring the council when they saw people breaking the rules.
That would not result in a "big stick", but perhaps a telephone call to remind people of the rules.
"Four-wheel-drives are coming in and treating it like their playground: It's not," Cr Butcher said.
"We can put gates up, put signs up - and they get chopped down and vandalised."
Cr Butcher had been studying the city's dunes as part of her work as chairwoman of the council's coastal dune reserve working party.
The dunes played an important role in protecting what was behind them, "sometimes houses", in a time of sea-level rise.
The working party had been operating "for a number of years" and was about to release a draft management plan, possibly this week.
It had been identifying the dunes, discovering the issues and deciding on a path for the future.
Cr Butcher said the plan would go out for consultation before it was finalised.
