Red and green outer buoys outside the entrance to Ōpōtiki Harbour Breakwater will be removed over the coming weeks because of ongoing issues during storm events.

All buoys between the breakwaters and within the inner harbour through to the wharf will remain in place.

Ōpōtiki District Council’s operations manager, parks, reserves and harbour Garry Page, said the red entrance buoy had dislodged and washed ashore at Snells Beach during the winter storms and each time this happened, it required costly repositioning.

“The red buoy washed ashore again recently, and we won’t be replacing it. We’ll also remove the green buoy and make sure the word is out that the outer markers are no longer in place,” Mr Page said.

“We’ve made sure the Ōpōtiki Harbour management committee is comfortable with change and that group includes representatives from the district council, Bay of Plenty Regional Council, the Crown, iwi and both commercial and non-commercial harbour users. In particular, the main large-scale operator, Whakatōhea Ōpōtiki Mussels, is very familiar with the entrance in all sorts of weather conditions and is across this change,” Mr Page said.

Bay of Plenty harbourmaster Jon Jon Peters said the most recent edition and online versions of the Boating in the Bay did not include the markers so the change was unlikely to impact visitors to Pākihikura coming from further afield.

“We’d still like to remind boaties to prepare ahead when visiting a new area around the Bay of Plenty by reading up on what to expect, navigational rules and known hazards.

Boating in the Bay has all the information on rules, buoys and beacons across Toi Moana,” Mr Peters said.