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Cape Palliser paper road: Vehicle ban gets the nod (www.rnz.co.nz)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/newzealand@lemmy.nz
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I actually cycled this route a few weeks ago, I can see why people are upset. There has been a large number of vehicles come through that have absolutely chewed up the ground, in places there are multiple pathways formed as one has become impassable.

Maintaining vehicle and cycling access, as well as marking out where the road actually is, is the best outcome in my view.

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[–] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Thanks for all the info! My in-laws also have a paper road over their farm, extending from the end of the road they live on. They live pretty remote but occasionally have someone show up with a campervan wanting to traverse it. A quad bike might make it, but not a car and definitely not a campervan. The paper road is pretty extensive too, tens of kilometers long until it meets up with another (actual) road. I'm not sure what there is at the fence line between farms.

They farm the road, but pretty sure they don't have a sign saying "public access" on the gate. I doubt they have heard of that requirement!

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    yeah the folks I know don't have a sign either; they've explored getting rid of it in the past but its a whole shambles to do so even though its an extremely pointless unformed road.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Where do they come from? Presumably they don't magically appear on private land, were they allocated when it was crown land?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yeah I think they're usually a very old legacy thing, but i'm not sure if it was at the point the land was parcelled up or in later subdivisions. Or perhaps at some point someone did a map based roading plan.

    There's a few to the north of the town I grew up where they were clearly planning a road with a bridge to provide additional connectivity and it just never happened. You can usually follow the paper road and it'll get a certain way along and either end across the river or stream from the other end, or sometimes turn into a driveway some distance from the other part.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I managed to find this:

    Often known as paper roads, most date back to the 19th century, when they were charted to provide access to newly subdivided land being sold to settlers by the Crown.

    With this map: https://maps.herengaanuku.govt.nz/Viewer/?map=202d9deb4dfa4c82a13536e12c58d8fa

    So it seems you're right, a very old legacy thing, mapped roads for access to subdivided land where the road was never formed by the council or it was but they didn't maintain it.

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