Kaitemako Road residents are pushing for Tauranga City Council to change its policy prohibiting a footpath along their rural road.

The residents are seeking an extension to the footpath from outside 109 Kaitemako Rd (where the footpath currently stops), to the reservoir at Panorama Drive.

Residents of Kaitemako Road are petitioning for a footpath along the roadside. Image: Google Earth.

However, the section in question is classed as ‘rural residential' in the current Tauranga City Plan and therefore does not qualify for footpaths.

As result, residents Chris and Annette Schnack delivered a petition to the council's strategy and policy committee this week.

But the council's transportation manager's report, accompanying the petition, shows it will take a large amount of political intervention to change the policy. Extending the footpath up a hill to Panorama Drive will also require road upgrading, including storm water work, new kerb and channelling, and road reshaping.

The Schnacks say the extension is needed due to increased use of the footpath-less piece of roadside by school children walking to bus stops – and heavy truck and trailer units using the road to access the quarry. Boy racers, who also use the road stretch, ignore speed limits, they say.

In the 2014/15 financial year, the city council proposes extending the current footpath on the western side of the Waipuna Park soccer fields to link with the existing footpath past Waipuna Grove, with a pedestrian a refuge opposite the current footpath end outside number 84.

Council received the petition.