Noel Edmonds in bizarre anti-cyclist rant as he tells cycle trail developer: “You are the enemy”

TV star Noel Edmonds told the developer of a cycle trail close to his home in New Zealand “you are the enemy” in a bizarre rant unleashed earlier this year during a meeting on his estate there.

According to Stuff.co.nz, Edmonds owns property worth a total of NZ$30 million in and around the village Ngātīmoti in the Motueka Valley, close to Tasman Bay at the northern end of South Island.

The news website’s journalists Tony Wall and Amy Ridout have been investigating Edmonds’ property purchases which have attracted some local opposition since he moved there last year.

In August, Belinda Crisp, who manages the Nelson Tasman Cycle Trail Trust, visited Edmonds’ River Haven estate to meet the former Saturday Swap Shop and Noel’s House Party host at his café there.

Tasman District Council and the New Zealand Government have given the go-ahead for the trust to develop a cycle trail along the Moteuka Valley Highway as part of the Great Taste Trail, although the project has met with delays including due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Crisp had hoped that Edmonds would allow part of the trail to pass through land he owns rather than being alongside the highway. Her proposal did not exactly get the response she might have hoped for.

“I turned up with a contractor, expecting to have a conversation about practicalities of the project, go for a wander, see how we could make it work for everyone,” she said.

Asking Crisp who she worked for, she replied that the trust she is employed by acts as a contractor to the council – something that clearly raised hackles for Edmonds, who has something of a history of run-ins with local government officials in the UK.

“When he heard that, he said, ‘you’re the servant and I’m the ratepayer, so I’m the master’,” she revealed.

“He started saying how dangerous [the cycle trail] was, there had been no consultation with the community, the entire community was up in arms,” she says.

“He accused us of wasting ratepayer money when businesses in Motueka are going under. I tried to stop the conversation.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He stood up and pointed at us both, ‘you two need your heads cut off and your brains replaced’.”

Cyclists who had stopped at the café for refreshment began to leave the venue as Edmonds’ tirade unfolded, according to Crisp.

Stuff.co.nz said it had secured a recording of part of the conversation, with Edmonds telling Crisp and the contractor who was with her: “All hell’s gonna break loose, right. And while you, still, have this attitude you are not welcome here.

“Don't even think about having a coffee, having a slice … you are our enemies.”

Raising his voice, he continued: “You are our enemies. You have to be defeated otherwise you’re gonna bring down this wonderful country.

“Yes you are, because you’re so proud. Anyway, good luck with it. As we say in Britain, ‘on yer bike’.”

Crisp, who was told by Edmonds that she was no longer welcome on his property, said: “I was shaking afterwards, it was unpleasant.”

For his part, Edmonds told the website: “She has been very difficult in the way in which she’s pursuing her particular role. She has set herself against people who pay their taxes.

“The picture is of economic decline and people just a few Ks from here are struggling to feed their families with nutritious food.

“In that context, I totally side with Kiwis who think that spending taxpayers’ money, millions of it, on a cycle path is possibly an inappropriate use of public funds.”

In the wake of the meeting, the trust has abandoned attempts to negotiate with Edmonds and the trail will not now go through his property, and instead is being constructed alongside the public highway.

It is reported that Edmonds was involved in what he said in an email extending invitations was an “emergency” public meeting for the River Haven community, and which was attended by well-known conspiracy theory-promoting politicians as well as anti-vaxxers.

Attendees backed a proposal that the local council should return money pledged for cycling projects, and the issue of 15-minute cities was also raised – something that Edmonds, claimed would be “would be “the end of this place [River Haven], because no-one would be able to get here.”

Edmonds, it appears, shares the common misconception that such proposals, which are aimed at ensuring that people have essential services such as healthcare, education and shops within a 15-minute walk of where they live, instead means that they are not allowed to travel further than that from their homes.

> Why are 15-minute cities attracting so many conspiracy theories? 

One issue from the other side of the world was also discussed at the meeting – specifically, the London Congestion Charge, which one woman claimed impeded people from using their cars.

Edmonds insists that instead of building cycleways, the local council should be supporting local businesses such as his, which he says employs 30 people, saying that those jobs “didn’t exist until we came to Ngātīmoti.”

He claimed though that his investment in the area was at risk due to “these public servants who forget who pays their wages. I don’t use the word ‘servant’ in a derogatory way, but in a democracy, that’s what they are.”

According to Edmonds, his business venture is “costing me a fortune,” and that if it continues to lose money a year from now, he may need to reconsider whether it is worth continuing to invest in it.

But in response to questions from the reporters at Stuff.co.nz, he likened them, as well as the cycle trail manager, to officials in Germany under the Third Reich.

“Please don’t tell me you’re just doing your job because that’s what Belinda [Crisp] said and that’s what the Nazis said.

“You can judge me how you want, I’m very comfortable, at nearly 75, with the person I am, the place that I’ve found and the way I conduct myself,” Edmonds added.

Edmonds has actually promoted cycling in the dim and distant past, starring in a TV ad for the iconic British bike brand Raleigh back in 1978.

In the advert, he cheerily tells every other cyclist, young and old, that he comes across – all riding bikes from the brand, of course – “I’ve got a new Raleigh,” the spot including an appearance from two-time Tour de France stage winner Cees Priem of the Ti Raleigh team, who gives the deadpan reply, “I ride Raleigh for a living.”