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Off the rails or an offence to safety? No one's sitting on the fence when Sophie Bond checks opinions about Piha's newest wooden feature.

Is it a fence? Is it a handrail? Is it really necessary? Not a community to let things slide, Piha residents are hotly debating a recent addition to the township.

The new wooden handrail and 10m path at the corner of Seaview and Beach Valley Rds have been creating controversy since day one.

Local tour guide Tony Dunn has followed the progress and says the final handrail is completely overdone. "It seems overkill to go from having nothing to a very urbanised construction. I know a lot of people in the community would have had some good constructive ideas as to another solution."

An occasional cyclist, Mr Dunn thinks the fence reduces visibility around the corner. "The main problem with the bike coming down [the hill] is other people being able to see you. This junction is mental in summer and to cut down visibility here is a bad idea."

Sara Carbery is an organiser of the Walk Safe in Piha group. Its goal is to make Piha safe for pedestrians.

"I know there's been a lot of debate about it in the community," she says, "but I'm so delighted to see any safe walkways in Piha that I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth."

Although she's pleased with the path, she's not so sure about the necessity of the handrail. "I find it surprising there needs to be one given there are so many steep walking tracks around here without handrails."

Bobbie Carroll lives in Beach Valley Rd and has been posting about the project in the online newsletter, Piha Village Voice. "I think it's silly. My personal feeling is that they have created a danger - the pedestrians may be protected from falling on the kikuyu grass but not from the traffic."

Large vehicles passing one another could endanger pedestrians if the handrail stopped them from jumping out of the way.

Ms Carroll believes Waitakere City Council has "just done what it was asked to do" but she doesn't want the handrail to stay. "Let's have something more beachy if we need to have a fence."

She suggests cutting the height of the fence and replacing the handrail with a rope. "That would fit with the aesthetics of Piha."

Council senior traffic engineer Duncan Campbell says its health and safety requirements stipulate a pathway beside a drop of more than 1m requires a handrail at least 1m high.

He's aware of the murmurs of discontent. "It seems to be pretty simple. One, some people think it's a visibility issue; two, some people don't like the steps; three, they don't like the aesthetics of it."

He admits the fence has made a marginal difference to driver visibility up the road. "But our intention, because we left big gaps in it, was that visibility would not be significantly affected."

The $10,000 pathway and handrail were put in following discussion with the Piha Residents and Ratepayers Association and the Waitakere Community Board. "Unfortunately, it was not clearly communicated that we would be installing the handrail, which seems to be a main point of contention."

Mr Campbell says the council will be having another look at the handrail and is willing to listen to what the community is saying. "But sometimes health and safety matters do take priority over aesthetics."

Don't fence me in

In March 1983 the former Waitemata City Council put up a 2m wire mesh fence around the Piha Domain campground.

A New Zealand  Herald article titled "Fence at Piha Upsets Residents'', says that about 95 residents protested with placards and hung signs on the structure saying "Don't fence us out'' and "Stalag 13''.

The council said the fence was for campers' security but agreed to take it down.