V8s park-and-ride off the grid

Hamilton City Council is seeking to get out of consent requirements to provide park-and-ride facilities for spectators at this year's V8 Supercars.

But that's annoyed the council's transport committee chairman Dave Macpherson, who said such a move would rob the event of a major educational tool in showing a large audience the benefits of public transport.

V8s senior project manager Carol Serra said the city council, the event resource consent holder, had applied for the provision of park-and-ride facilities – which catered for about 1200 motorists last year – to become a "discretionary activity" in future.

However the intention this year was to trial the event without one "to see how it goes".

The council believed the capacity for parking that was needed could be readily absorbed within the CBD, "with that audience then positioned to take advantage of the CBD", she said.

"As things develop and change there will always be elements of refinement. Every year we look at what improvements we can provide."

Original consent conditions – designed for daily crowds of 80,000 – required three park-and-ride facilities, though only two operated in the first year, and one last year.

Mr Macpherson was only alerted to the new council stance in transport committee minutes this week.

"Whoever made this decision was not thinking about the consequences," he said at this week's regional passenger transport committee meeting.

"The original V8 scheme was very good because of its public transport component. The park-and-ride part was very educational in that it showed a large group of people the ways to handle public transport and we got help in promoting the buses."

He told the Times many of the conditions on the V8 event were now being rolled back one by one.

"The message seems to be that consent conditions aren't set in concrete like we are told they are," he said. "You have to be eternally vigilant.

"If there was a good reason for changes ... why wouldn't they come and discuss it?

"When you just hear it's been done by some unknown process you naturally start to have suspicions."

Ms Serra argued the key public transport considerations for the V8s were not compromised, with free buses and shuttles still running over the weekend.

A decision on the consent alteration is expected this week.

Under the council proposal spectators who have already bought tickets for the park-and-ride are being offered parking at Maeroa Intermediate – effectively a "park-and-walk".

Meanwhile Environment Waikato will be co-ordinating a Hamilton park-and-ride operation for the World Rowing Championships at Lake Karapiro later this year, with two departures a day to the event and two return times.

- © Fairfax NZ News