The Mrs, The Mistress and Ginger Cougar on Signall Hill in Dunedin will be replaced with more appropriate names approved by the council.
Council parks and recreation group manager Robert West said it had received two complaints about the names of three Signal Hill mountain biking tracks.
Staff agreed the names were inappropriate and raised the matter with Mountain Biking Otago, he said.
‘‘We are pleased MBO has agreed to make the changes and understand some of the signs have already been removed. We are working with the group on guidelines for the future naming of tracks.’’
Mountain Biking Otago president Kristy Booth said she was ‘‘disappointed for all involved’’.
The tracks had these names for seven to 10 years, and ‘‘in this time there has been no negative comments bought to our attention’’.
‘‘We don't find them inappropriate within the context of how their names came to be.’’
Volunteers would need to spend a significant amount of time club funds correcting one person's complaint, she said.
The cost of the changes was ‘‘a considerable amount, as it's not just three signs at the beginning of each of these tracks, but other signage that contain their names elsewhere.’’
Track signage costs had always been covered by Mountain Biking Otago.
Mrs Booth said the committee were meeting tomorrow to confirm new names and proceed with new signage.
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Comments
...and what is inappropriate please?
what a shame having to spend all this money and time because of one lone soul who does not get a joke!
...hope this persons life will be significantly impacted (to the better) by this forced name change.
May be I should complain about the name change and make them change it back...?
It's a slippery slope, this policing of facility names. I understand language is offensive if it offends someone - but how many does it take for that to matter? Original residents of New Zealand might well be offended that many of Dunedin's streets are named for the colonists who were dispossessed of the land under them. What if two of them complained? And what goes on in the minds of those who complained about the bike track names? And finally, how much research did Robert West do regarding the wider population's opinion of those, to my mind innocuous, names?
American tourists claim to have seen cougars, or mountain lions, in the Canterbury foothills.
I vote, "The Karen", "The Virtue Signal", and "Token Outrage"
Council jobs-worth at it again - well done DCC.
O tempora, o mores....give me strength :(
Ok, my suggestions for new names are...' The Blue Dots', 'The Plan D' and 'Hawkins's Lament'.
Or how about, "#Me too", "No means no", and "Enthusiastic Consent"? Perhaps that might teach some track pixies and grommets some better manners when it comes to women?
This is pc gone mad, likely some seat polisher in the dcc took umbrage and as the article states "The tracks had these names for seven to 10 years, and ‘‘in this time there has been no negative comments bought to our attention".
Unbelievable. Maybe those names should be removed from dictionaries and banned from literature too.
This is insane. Put the signs back! Have they read titles of student flats right in the city? "Greasy beaver" anyone? Rebrand them all to rainbows and unicorns too? Btw "DCC" sounds more and more like a curse word to me as time goes by, time to give it a new name and more qualified leadership
The Greasy Beaver sign was removed last year.
I and my family vote the original names NOT offensive.
Does our opinion cancel the complainers (who obviously have nothing better to do than waste ratepayers money with renaming signage) out? Or don't we count because we didn't whine enough?
I see no sign of reasonable debate or discussion here, and every sign of kowtowing to the overly easily offended!