Ardmore needs help - This affects all bikers' rights!
Firstly they monitor this forum so keep the slagging off out of this thread
Looks like poor old John is tapped out from the last newsletter! Patience and money! I haven't been involved much but probably a few self interested people, organising the many who move into an area and make it how they want it to be rather than how it has been for many years, ignoring the impact on the wider community!
I don't know what we can do to help but this is the tail wagging the dog! Again another travesty of justice created by the resource management act which seems to give all the power and funding to the few who want to make it their life's ambition to create their world how they want it even though these facilities have been there for ages and probably long before they even moved in!!!
Bear in mind the council inspectors have been to these peoples homes while a meeting is being held and due process has been done! They simply have a bee in their bonnet and will keep using the system against us until they get their way! Either by consistent relentless pressure or by exhausting the funding and commitment one man is prepared to invest!! John has never ripped us off if your a member, Ardmore on Wednesday is only $10 bucks to ride.
Last newsletter here, published with John's permission.
THIS SUNDAY AT ARDMORE
We are going all out for our last ride at Ardmore with another new track design we will be building on Saturday and what looks like is going to be perfect fine weather for Sunday.
Over 185 riders made submissions on our resource consent and most of you by now will have received notices of the appeal being made against our Resource Consent by the Concerned Residents Group CRG and the owner of the landfill next door.
Straight after the appeal was lodged I was expecting the Council to close us down until the hearings but surprisingly the Councils lawyers sent a memorandum to the Environment Court stating that they believed we should be able to continue to operate through to the hearings under the stay of the abatement notice issued last year.
The CRG have now gone direct to the Environment Court and asked for the track to be closed. I have to get a memorandum to the Court done today and appear at a Judicial Conference on Monday. Mike Cameron has been over the documents submitted so far and said it isn't too hopeful that we will be able to keep the track open if we go to court without legal representation.
The CRG will be applying to the government for legal funding to fight us in the Environment Court and I am hoping we will be able to do the same. Its an important fight for us to win because the Resource consent we were granted limits 4 strokes to 94 decibels and two strokes to 96 decibels which 90 percent of the bikes currently being ridden would not comply with. We should be able to keep running the track as a mini trail park for PW50s, PW80s, XR70s and other bikes that do comply, but the implications go further than just Ardmore.
If the CRG are successful in the Environment Court the decision will become case law and the 94 decibel limit is then liable to be applied to other off road motorcycle riding throughout the country. Ken Fell for example does not have an existing resource consent for bikes to be ridden on his farm so his local Council would more than likely apply the latest Environment Court ruling from our case and also restrict all motorcycle activity on his property to 94 decibels for 4 strokes and 96 for 2 strokes.
Anybody who doesn't already have a full consent will be in danger of having the ruling applied to them. Unfortunately the Environment Court decisions once made are seldom overturned. The decisions become case law and are usually reinforced with more rules.
We have a good chance of winning this, bikes and cars can be 98 decibels on the road and are not tested, but we have a ruling requiring bikes at our track to make less noise than they could on a public road even in the middle of the night. Our biggest problem is that we have been sucked dry by two years of fighting the Council and a group of residents who have had access to Council resources including their lawyers. The CRG have brought their own lawyers to court at a point where we have blown everything we have on acoustic reports and planning consent work and have generated as much debt as we can possibly handle. So now we are up the Environment Court Creek without a paddle fighting an experienced group who have had years of fun in court at the ratepayers and taxpayers expense fighting the Warbirds, Ardmore Airfield, the Kennel Club and now us.
See you Sunday
Lets make it a good one
Ideas please!! Donation drive, protest ride, media attention. I dunno, I just no John has fought tooth and nail for us and this is very very wrong!
PS we don't need a hundred posts on how to make bikes more quiet it won't even get that far if they close the place down!
Last edited by Nasty; 21st September 2008 at 06:42.
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On a Motorcycle you're penetrating distance, right along with the machine!! In a car you're just a spectator, the windshields like a TV!!
'Life's Journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out! Shouting, ' Holy sh!t... What a Ride!! '
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