Roaming horses are causing problems in Ōpōtiki again, trampling newly-planted flower beds, damaging stopbanks and soiling sports fields..

The number of roaming horses in town has risen recently and owners are being asked to sort it out.

Ōpōtiki District Council’s parks, reserves and harbour operations manager Garry Page said a lot of council staff time was spent cleaning up after the animals.

He is calling for horse owners to take action.

“It is an ongoing issue across all sorts of areas in council, but particularly for our parks and reserves teams,” Mr Page said.

“Our gardening team spend a lot of time and energy making sure our parks and gardens look nice for residents and visitors to enjoy, only to find roaming horses crushing plants, turning grass into mud, and leaving horse poo across the sports grounds used by our kids each weekend.”

He said that a year ago, the parks and reserves team was doing a horse-poo run, collecting poo from about the place, three times a week.

“They are now needing to do that up to 30 times a week and there are so many better things they should be doing with their time and energy, not cleaning up after other people’s horses.  

“Moving the horses out of public places is a health and safety risk for staff and it is costing the rest of the district time and money to clean up their mess.”

He said it was a small minority of horse owners causing the issue, because they hadn‘t arranged grazing or care for their horses.

“The community needs to make it clear to these horse owners that it’s not okay and they need to sort their horses out now before someone gets seriously hurt,” Mr Page said.