Thread: Farmer lying about paper road?

Originally Posted by Flyblown

@Stocky

I was involved in several lengthy battles about paper road access with landowners. This was not hunting related, it was minerals exploration on public land requiring logistical support and - for safety planning - means of access / egress should helicopters not be possible. My role was to negotiate legal access agreements with the landowners.

The only worthwhile advice I can give you is:

DOC are absolutely hopeless on this issue and don’t want a bar of it, most of the regional employees in the local office will avoid this argument like the plague. Most council employees we dealt with on this issue were equally useless. My experience working with DOC and council on this left me with a lifelong cynicism towards these public “servants”. However every now and again you do come across a good bastard, finding him or her is the difficult part.

Forcing the issue with the landowner requires Legal representation which should in all honesty be unnecessary. The existing precedent around the country is messy. Unless you are an international mining conglomerate (or similar) this is a very expensive and frustrating process. Sometimes it is enough to appear at the front door so lawyered up that your corner of the ring is clearly going to be far too tough to fight, and the landowner gives up before any dollars are spent. But other times the landowner will simply ignore you, knowing that your schedule of work is sufficiently urgent for you to probably find another way of doing something that doesn’t involve his land.

Some landowners can get really nasty. I have hands on experience of one particular family deliberately damaging vehicles and plant after one company (in extraneous circumstances) made the decision to go ahead and use farm tracks regardless of how landowners felt about it. You would be amazed how difficult it is to secure a prosecution in the circumstances, when everyone knows who did it, and here you have a case of equally disinterested Police, as well as DOC, and the council.

It’s an infernally annoying and long-standing issue in New Zealand and something that I wish could be sorted out once and for all.

I have found that by far the best approach is face-to-face, with a resolute determination not to lose your shit if you are provoked. With what you’ve told us so far of your background and experience I would say a face-to-face would be a worthwhile next step.

Yes. As I said you really need to weigh up if its worth the angst just for a bit of hunting access. Its almost bound to end in tears.