A plea for the Dunedin City Council to reconsider plans to end the use of shark nets off one of Dunedin's popular beaches has been rebuffed.
The Saddle Hill Community Board last week voted to ask the council to reconsider its decision to remove the nets from Brighton Beach, which fell within the board's area, until further consultation was conducted.
Councillors last month voted 9-3 to remove the sets of 100m-long nets from St Kilda, St Clair and Brighton beaches, saving $38,000 annually, subject to approval of the 2011-12 draft annual plan on June 27.
Speaking at this week's full council meeting, Cr Colin Weatherall, a Brighton resident and the council's representative on the community board, reiterated the board's desire to have the decision reconsidered.
He asked for the decision to remove the nets to lie on the table until further consultation was carried out.
Other councillors argued the intention to debate the shark nets issue had been well signalled, and the board given ample opportunity to voice concerns during last month's annual plan public submissions.
"I think we should stick by our decision," Cr Teresa Stevenson said.
However, Cr Neil Collins renewed the argument against ending the shark net programme, saying the council sometimes needed to make "unpalatable" decisions.
Councillors had been "captured by people of an environmental nature" by listening to submitters who last month expressed concern about the nets' effect on other wildlife, he said.
Those submitters argued the nets did not protect swimmers from dangerous sharks, but had killed hundreds of harmless sharks, many while leaving the beaches; as well as seals and dolphins.
The nets were installed for the first time after five attacks, three of them fatal, off the Dunedin coast in the 1960s and '70s, but there had been no fatal shark attacks in Dunedin waters for nearly 40 years.
Cr Collins said there could be no "definite reason" for the lack of attacks since the nets were installed, but urged councillors to keep them and put the protection of human lives first.
"People have lost their lives out there," he said.
Mayor Dave Cull told this week's meeting the debate was "not about the rights and wrongs of having shark nets", but the "assertion" the community had not been properly consulted.
"I have to say I agree with several of the councillors around the table that that's just not true at all."
After the debate, councillors voted 8-6 against leaving the decision on the table.
That meant the decision to remove the nets' funding from the draft annual plan would remain, subject to confirmation on June 27.
