Services on CityLink Whangārei’s Otangarei Route Four will temporarily bypass Matai St from today until further notice while police investigate a series of rock throwing incidents that have damaged buses and put drivers and passengers at risk.

The 16-bus CityLink network is operated by Ritchies Transport Whangarei under contract to the Northland Regional Council.

The council’s Transport Manager Chris Powell says the council and Ritchies were already dealing with a spate of recent rock throwing on Matai St that had seen bus windows smashed in separate incidents on both Saturday and Monday.

"We take these incidents very seriously as in both cases there were passengers on board and either incident had the potential to injure either those passengers or our drivers, although fortunately that did not occur."

Both the drivers involved and their passengers had been shaken by the incidents.

Mr Powell says there have unfortunately been several more incidents of Matai St rock throwing since Monday and things had come to a head today when yet more rocks were thrown.

After discussions between Ritchies and the council, the decision had been made to temporarily stop travelling along Matai St on safety grounds while police investigate.

Instead the Route Four bus would do a loop around nearby William Jones Dr.

The council estimated several regular passengers a day would be directly impacted by the decision, but all involved felt they had no choice but to avoid Matai St until the matter was resolved.

"We take health and safety considerations very seriously." "We’ve got a responsibility to both our drivers and passengers to ensure that we’re operating in a safe environment hence today’s decision."

Mr Powell says the council and Ritchies hoped to meet with Otangarei community leaders to discuss the situation and what might be able to be done to prevent the issue going forwards.

Things had been quiet in the area since a previous spate of rock throwing in the suburb 10 years ago. In that case the council and Ritchies had worked together to stress the importance of the buses to the community and that the incidents of rock throwing were putting the service at risk locally.

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