I am a project manager with the Auckland Regional Council, I manage CAPEX projects for the regional parks in the Southern Sector which includes Ambury Regional Park. In the 2008/2009 financial year we received funding to create hardstand carparks in Ambury Regional Park. Ambury is a farm park with a vast open green space and coastal vistas. There is limited roading and hardstand parking available, with the majority of the visitors to the park utilising the grassed verges to park their cars – which get particularly boggy in winter. With visitor numbers increasing we’ve been forced to increase the number of parks available. We looked into a number of options including gobi blocks, metal carparks, concrete and hotmix. Jakaar plastics sent through some info around this time on their Jakmats including some examples of work completed with DOC and decided to trial it at Ambury. Pricing is similar to gobi, concrete and hotmix – for this project it was more about the visual aesthetics of the product at the Ambury location. We didn’t want to create more roads, more concrete/hotmix carparks, wanting to retain the green open space feel when entering the park. We’ve had problems in other parks with Gobi blocks so the Jakaar seemed like a good alternative.

We have since trialled Jakmat in 3 areas at Ambury increasing the number of hardstand parks by around 40 spaces. The product has allowed us to maintain the green open space whilst allowing for all weather parking. We’ve received positive feedback from the staff and have good grass coverage on all the areas. We’ve yet to go through a full summer with the product – dry weather and high visitor numbers, but to date the durability and visual aesthetics have met our expectations. It is important to get the grass type right for the area and have had a few issues with Pukeko’s pulling out slugs of grass (which we have in plague proportions). Is still early days but to date this the project has been successful.

Happy to discuss further ,

Kind regards,

Trent Taylor
Project Leader - Parks
Auckland Regional Council

Before installing Jakmat	Laying of JakMat in May 09
Grass growth, through winter, by Aug 09	Full use in October with Family Day at park 13 Oct 09

Contact us to discuss how JakMat can work for you.