The Queenstown District Council is still taking a High Court injunction to have a barrier removed from a road at Lake Hawea which blocks access to Kidds Bush, even though a farmer plans to reopen it four days after the November 22 hearing.
The High Court at Christchurch will on November 22 consider an injunction from the council forcing Taff and Penny Cochrane, the lessees of Hunter Valley Station, to remove a barrier across Meads Rd which is on their pastoral lease land.
The Cochranes closed the barrier on October 11 after concerns about the antisocial behaviour of some visitors, and anger at having lambs and calves disrupted by motorists.
The barrier will be open during Labour Weekend and be closed again from the next Tuesday until November 26, when calving and lambing has finished.
The Queenstown Lakes District Council's manager of regulatory and corporate services, Roger Taylor, said the court action would resolve what had been a simmering issue over the road's status for some years and clarify the public's right of access.
"The council's view is that Meads Rd is a public road as far as Kidds Bush," he said.
The legal costs to the council for the injunction and substantive hearing would be between $20,000 and $25,000, he said.
Part of the council's case was implied dedication, he said, that because public money had been spent on the road, it was a public road.
Mr Taylor said the Cochranes had "walked away" from discussions on the issue last December.
A spokesman for the Cochranes disputed that claim.
Ray Macleod, the manager of Landward Management, said that at a meeting on October 16 last year with the council, he and the Cochranes felt "provoked" and withdrew from negotiations, opting to deal with the road's status through tenure review.
That meeting was with former deputy mayor John Wilson and a council consultant. He said they discovered Mr Wilson was working closely with the Department of Conservation (Doc) despite assurances that issues involving Doc were not on the table.
"When we started dealing with the council they assured us we were dealing solely with the council, only for us to find out they had been sharing information with Doc and appeared to be taking advice from Doc," Mr Macleod said.
"A subsequent Official Information Act request, where the QLDC had to be reminded of its duty by the Ombudsman's Office, confirmed this."
Mr Macleod said in a 2008 letter the district council notified the Cochranes of its concerns the public could perceive that, because public money had been spent on Meads Rd, it was a public road when it was not.
The Cochranes had offered recently to talk to the council, but that invitation had not been taken up, Mr Macleod said.
