Due to the number of members of the public attending Wednesday's meeting in order to hear the discussion on the motion, it was moved forward in the schedule to be heard first.

A number of deputations had been presented on the issue, and during council's discussion Mayor Kristy McBain said there were "three main sticking points" between the North Tura Beach Residents Association and the Living with Nature Group over the issue.

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"I believe the two groups can come to agreement around them," she said.

But councillor Sharon Tapscott said "you're never going to get 100 per cent of accommodation for everybody" and there was the ability to be flexible once the SMP had been implemented.

"We are so close, we're talking about minor things here," she said.

"This is a first-world problem you know, there's bigger problems. Let's put it in place and fix the problems."

She said council managed 30 sites and this site had used up more resources than the other 29 put together.

Cr Jo Dodds said there had been a "phenomenal amount of work" put into the SMP by council over several years so "any further consultation is redundant".

But Cr Robyn Bain proposed deferring the matter until the next council meeting as "quite clearly" council did not have the support of the majority of the community over the issue.

"After three years we are within a whisker of getting a whole group to come to common agreement," Cr Bain said.

But general manager Leanne Barnes said to get a report ready for the next council meeting would be problematic due to council's current workload and would required council amending its priorities.

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Cr Jodds commented: "We've just seen the suggestion that this will take three weeks blow out to six weeks".

The motion endorsing the SMP at Wednesday's meeting was lost.

The motion to defer the matter to the meeting on October 30 passed, supported by Mayor McBain and councillors Bain, Mitchell Nadin, Russell Fitzpatrick and Tony Allen.

This motion also stated that council supported the location of the path on the map in the draft SMP.

At the beginning of the matter's discussion Ms Barnes said she wanted to publicly show her support for council staff and encouraged members of the public to use their deputations to talk about the issue, not attack members of staff - to a chorus of "hear, hear" from councillors.