Shark nets protecting Dunedin's beaches remain in the sights of at least one Dunedin city councillor.
Cr Richard Thomson has called for a staff report on the appropriateness of the nets, including their costs, any possible environmental effect and new scientific knowledge relating to the use of nets.
The report was requested at the end of Wednesday's community development committee meeting.
Cr Thomson's move follows an unsuccessful attempt last month by several councillors to have funding for the shark nets removed from the council's draft budget for 2011-12.
Cr Kate Wilson suggested the move during the council's pre-draft annual plan hearings, and won support from Cr Thomson, who said the nets created "the most enormous placebo effect you could possibly have".
However, Cr Wilson's suggestion - which could have saved $40,000 each year - was defeated in a 6-7 vote, after Crs Syd Brown and Neil Collins argued for the nets to be retained.
The 100m-long nets were positioned off St Kilda, St Clair and Brighton beaches each summer, after five attacks, three of them fatal, in the space of seven years in the 1960s and '70s.
About 700 sharks had been caught in the nets since council records began in 1977.
