Offenders serving community work sentences are getting an abundance of work maintaining mountain bike tracks in Queentown’s many hills.
The Community Probation Service saw the bike track as an ideal placement for community work offenders so staff approached Queenstown Mountain Bike Club President Lance Brown. He put the idea to the Queenstown Lakes District Council and the project got the go-ahead.
Since November the club has supervised work parties of six to eight workers to maintain cycle tracks on the council-managed Ben Lomond Reserve.
“It’s going really well. The workers are doing a good job and seem proud of their efforts to improve facilities in their own community,” says Lance. Some of them have said they might even try mountain biking, he adds.
So far the workers have maintained about 800 metres of track. At this stage the work is focused on existing tracks but forging new tracks remains an option for later projects.
“We’ve already had positive feedback from locals and club members who use the tracks and have been really pleased to see the tracks in such good shape,” says Lance.
“This project is an example of a number of community work initiatives in Queenstown. It’s a good result for everyone, the Council is getting its land managed, the mountain-bike club members get their tracks maintained and the offenders are getting their hours done through a project that contributes to their own community,” says Invercargill Service Manager Glenn Morrison.
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ISSN 1178-8453