Bryan Weyburne is involved in starting up a new political party that is pro-car.

A pro-car political party has formed to contest the next Wellington City Council elections and cyclists are first in the firing line.

Wellington First has been formed by former councillor Bryan Weyburne and businessman Digby Paape who were inspired by promoter Phil Sprey, who recently said he would donate $10,000 for any viable candidate to topple incumbent Justin Lester.

Sprey this week said he was not aligning himself to the group but if it found a viable candidate with the "X-factor" to topple Lester, he was not ruling out backing that candidate.

STUFF Digby Paape is also involved in the new group, Wellington First.

With the next local body elections coming in October, 2019, one thing Wellington First doesn't yet have is any candidates to run for councillor or Mayor. Those eventual candidates could help form further policy, they said.

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What Wellington First does have is form in stacking councils. Both Weyburne and Paape were instrumental in rates-reduction group Rates Reform from the late 1970s to early 1990s which they said successfully got candidates onto Hutt and Wellington councils.

ROBERT KITCHIN/STUFF Island Bay's cycleway proved so controversial hundreds turned out in protest last December.

Weyburne was on Wellington City Council between 1983 and 1986, then again between 1993 and 1996, though he has no plans to run on his own party's ticket in 2019.

While neither were anti-cycling as such they were against Wellington's investment and focus on getting people on pushbikes.

"We are supposed to believe that the city needs to switch over to bicycles, a 150-year-old technology that cars have virtually eliminated," the group's first statement says.

ROSS GIBLIN/STUFF Bryan Weyburne when he retired from real estate in 2010. He is behind a new group set up to contest the next Wellington City elections.

"On a sunny, calm day on flat land a bike can be a very enjoyable pastime, but on a cold, wet, blustery day on the Wellington hills, taking the children to kindy, school, as well as dropping off the partner before work is a job for cars. Everyone has one, for that reason."

They believed the council was putting cycles ahead of cars, including a proposal to eliminate 600 car parks in a move to get the already-controversial Island Bay cycleway into the city.

"Unless driverless cars dominate, Wellington is a city for motorists. The more parks turned into cycle lanes, gardens, and street art installations the worse it will become."

STUFF The new group is opposed to ratepayer money being spent on cycle infrastructure (File photo).

While the pro-car, anti-cycle line is the main string in the group's bow they have also suggested an easily-installed prefabricated concrete tunnel beneath the Basin Reserve, as well as the Parry People Mover - a lightrail system. Both were plans pushed for by Weyburne when he was in council in the 1990s.

The group advocated for reserving current car parking buildings and creating new ones.

"The councillors that oppose the ruination of our city have been silenced by the green-leaning councillors who have sold them the idea of an unobtainable utopia of a carless society. The majority of the council need to be voted out and stop this unrealistic cyclemania."

Wellington Mayor Justin Lester, who earlier confirmed he was going to run again in 2019, said he stood on a "multi-modal" transport platform made up of public transport, roading, and infrastructure for the likes of walking and cycling.

The vast majority of the council's spend on transport was on roading infrastructure, he said.

Cycle infrastructure was 75 per cent funded by central government because there was recognition there had been a deficit of spending in the area resulting in less people walking and cycling - particularly children.

The Transport Minister and Wellington City Council would be making an announcement on the Basin Reserve transport solution early in 2019.