Kapiti Coast District Council is being slammed for issuing consent for a mountainbike track cut through protected native bush while prosecuting two elderly couples for felling a few native trees on their properties.

Kapiti Mountain Bike Club gained resource consent in June 2013 to develop a track through bush on Whareroa farm, near Paekakariki, with conditions, including excavation by hand.

Last year the club used a digger to make part of the track, through a 5.6h remnant of forest that was protected by a Conservation Department covenant. The digger fell down a steep bank and had to be removed by helicopter.

Neighbouring land owner Mike Alexander said he wondered what was going on when he saw the digger in the middle of the eco-site.

A council staff member initially told Alexander that one of the tracks skirted the eco-site but later admitted the track went through the middle of the site.

Work had stopped "pending the consideration for an application for retrospective resource consent for works within the eco-site."

There was a public outcry last year when the council laid charges against two elderly Otaki couples for felling native trees on their properties.

Peter Standen, 77, and his wife, Diana, 74, were charged with chopping down seven native trees on their property. The council later withdrew the charges and apologised for stress caused.

Their neighbours Keith McLeavey, 72, and wife Lorraine, 68, appeared in Levin District Court in May after pleading guilty to getting an arborist to cut three mahoe trees on their property.

Judge Brian Dwyer described the offending as "trivial" and discharged the couple without conviction. Standen told The Dominion Post "what was good enough for the bike club should have been good enough for us".

According to council reports, other consent infringements by the bike club included excessive earthworks, earthworks close to a body of water and batters not carried out to prevent erosion.

Councillor K Gurunathan said it was crazy to give the bike club consent to develop a track by hand on a slope of 28 degrees or more.

"That is the sort of thing they do in China. It was inevitable they would end up using earthmoving machines and chainsaws."

Kapiti Mountain Bike Club secretary Peter Woodman-Aldridge said they walked the route with DOC and council staff before work started, and no-one alerted them to the ecologically-protected site.

"We were unaware it was a protected area. We breached consent conditions to use hand tools by using the digger but we could never have done it by hand. Moving large boulders and rocks, going by hand was a bit unrealistic."

He understood the club was negotiating a retrospective consent and was trying to mitigate council concerns, including replacing earth scraped away from around large trees.

A Department of Conservation spokeswoman said the tracks were being developed under a managed agreement with DOC and confirmed a digger used to construct a track rolled about 10 metres down the side. "Nobody was injured, there was minimal damage to the landscape. DOC was informed and completed an investigation which found part of the track under construction gave way while the digger was parked."

The council's acting regulatory services group manager, Sharon Foss, said the council had some concerns around compliance with the bike club's consent. "We are investigating with a view to what might be the appropriate level of response . . . we have not received any application for retrospective consent."