Deputy Mayor David Croad says the management plan for Shelly Beach is more favorable than council first thought.
Photo: Marlborough Express

A decision to dismisses a mobile sauna at Shelly Beach in Picton will “put it on the table” as a possible option after the deputy mayor admitted he had gone and done some homework.

The mobile sauna first parked in Picton in July when it opened with a “soft launch”, but by August it had to close because it didn’t have consent.

A Marlborough District Council committee in October rejected a proposal to allow the mobile sauna to operate on Shelly Beach, near the Queen Charlotte Yacht Club, between 4pm and 8pm year-round.

When the full council went to approve that decision at a meeting last Thursday, Deputy Mayor David Croad suggested the council had taken no action to reject the idea.

Councilors were initially told that the Victoria Domain Reserve Management Plan – which included Shelly Beach – did not allow commercial activity.

Croad said he had since looked at reserve management plans “much more closely”, particularly the one for Victoria Domain.

He said he had read the plan “cover to cover” and thought it was “more favorable” to business activity than the council had been led to believe.

“I commented at the time that maybe while we were working with the applicant we should have left that paper on the table, so that’s my suggestion today,” Croad told the full council meeting.

Council is also looking at options for the sauna to operate on Picton foreshore instead of Shelly Beach.
Photo: Marlborough Express

He said he understood council staff had made contact with the sauna operator and that they were investigating the Picton foreshore as an option as the area had existing concessions. He thought this should continue.

Wairau-Awatere ward councilor Gerald Hope, who joked he “loves the unexpected”, said he was aware it could raise sauna operator expectations that the Shelly Beach site was a “likely possibility”.

“It’s a concern for me,” Hope said.

He asked for clarity on what Croad understood the plan to allow.

Croad said the governor of the reserve, being the council, could make a decision to allow an activity.

“That’s step one and step two is that the applicant has to go through a resource allocation process.”

The sauna was parked near the Queen Charlotte Yacht Club in July but had to close in August because it didn’t have a permit.
Photo: Marlborough Express

That resource consent was most likely publicly notified so the council would get community feedback on any proposal.

“If you think about the sauna in relation to the water and the cold and the hot and the fact that they want to operate between 4 and 8 p.m. at night, it’s more of a complementary activity than a commercial activity that might duplicate something that’s already there. in town,” Croad said.

He said the council was concerned about setting a precedent, however the “reality” was that commercial activity such as food carts could be rejected because there are already food options in Picton.

“This activity is obviously new, it’s quite entrepreneurial,” he said.

“I’ve done a lot more homework, it’s in many other parts of the country, I think it’s really interesting.”

Therefore, the full council agreed to let the idea sit on the table instead of rejecting it.

The proposal that originally went to council said it would need two parking spaces to work.

Consent was required because commercial activity on the site was not permitted under the rules of the proposed Marlborough Environmental Plan.

LDR is local journalism, co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.