The large pines and macrocarpa trees that are a feature of Yatton Park are to be removed following a recent slip.

A couple of pine trees and tonnes of soil fell down the bank from the walkway into the Waimapu Stream on Sunday.

The Yatton Park slip.

An engineer's inspection has found the Tauranga City Council needs to get some of the weight out of the top of the cliff, 'which means getting rid of some of the trees,” says the council's parks department's arboriculture coordinator Josh Trafford.

'This week we intend to finalise what we will be doing and we intend to do some tree removal and tree reduction work.

'We will cut back what we can. If it can be reduced in height and still survive we will do that.

'Some of the pines are quite long and leggy – there're no lower branches that we can cut them back to, so they are likely to be removed.

'They have got such a big sail area it's causing a lot of stress on the top of that bank.

'By minimising that stress then we should be able to minimise the risk of further slippage.

'We think the site is safe for now, there's no indication it is going to slip further at the moment and there's still plenty of distance between the track and the bank.”

Trees on the slip's edge are in line to be removed.

The slip is caused by the Waimapu Stream cutting away the bottom of the bank, and water run-off from the top.

Protecting the bottom of the bank from the stream has been ruled out because the area is tidal. The engineers' advice is that protecting the bottom will not solve anything, says Josh.

'It's just a natural process that's been going on there forever,” says Josh.

'It's not the first slip that that section of Yatton Park has had – it's had a number over the last five years. This is the biggest, but not the first.

'The base of the cliff is being undermined by the stream; it's just a natural process that occurs once the gradient gets too steep.”

The council will try and plant the top of the cliff to minimise any further slippage, says Josh.

Because of the site, removing the trees will require some quite large machinery.

'We don't want to have climbers going anywhere near the edge of the bank.”