King Country
THURSDAY, THURSDAY,FEBRUARY FEBRUARY27, 27,2025 2025
FREE
murray hunt
KingCountry CountryNews News| |11 King
furnishers
kingcountrynews.nz FEBRUARY 27, 2025
Good night for kiwi, please By Chris Gardner
Keep your floodlights off of our Kiwi House. That’s the message Ōtorohanga Kiwi House general manager Jo Russell has for Ōtorohanga District Council as it decides what to do with the former Ōtorohanga Caravan Park and Holiday Camp in the Ōtorohanga Domain. The council-owned holiday park ceased operation in 2023, as the council began development of a reserve management strategy Now the future of the space is uncertain. One possibility is the former holiday camp
becoming a sports ground and Russell is concerned that if that occurred high level sport lighting would be installed that could impact all manner of wildlife in the park. “Our concern for the Kiwi House is high level light disturbance,” Russell said. “If a new sports field goes in, we’d be really keen to know where those lights would be located to make sure that we don’t get any lights at that high level.” Light disturbance would impact the circadian rhythm of nocturnal kiwi and other species such as kaka and kea who are unable to tell the difference between natural
Ōtorohanga Kiwi House wants their kiwi to have a good night’s sleep – just like the Goodnight Kiwi which popped off to bed at the end of TVNZ’s programmes many years ago.
sunlight and manmade highlevel lighting. They would find it very confusing, she
said. Russell has other plans for the former holiday park,
which she has shared with the council. “The difficulty is that there’s not enough parking for everybody,” she said. Around 180 players, plus supporters, turn out regularly for summer soccer. Another 160 players, plus supporters, turn out on Friday nights for netball. “People are double parking, people are parking on the yellow lines, and the visibility at that time of night is really low. To be honest, I have nearly collected people myself in my car. It really worries me that we have got this risk to not only our sports players and our visitors but also to our
children.” Russell is proposing a permeable overflow car park with five electric vehicle charging stations for use by all domain users as well as a park and ride scheme connected to Waitomo Caves village. “Hopefully we can get some of our visitors staying in town and riding out to Waitomo and back,” Russell said. She is not proposing that the Kiwi House operate the park and ride, as it would need a small fleet of bicycles, although the Kiwi House has previously operated holiday camp.
Continued on page 2
Brawl closes college By Chris Gardner
Ōtorohanga College turned to online learning for two days last week as an investigation began into a brawl apparently sparked after a car containing young people drove onto school grounds spoiling for a fight. College board co-chair Duncan Coull told The News the Bledisloe Avenue college had decided to pivot to online learning for two days to enable a thorough investigation after the fight broke out between 15 and 20 youth on college grounds on Monday morning. Principal Lyndsay Kurth and senior school leaders investigated the issues that had led to the situation on Tuesday and Wednesday as pupils worked from home. Since then, controls, including security enhancements and measures, have been put in place. A police spokeswoman said officers were called to the college at about 11.45am on Monday, February 17, after a report of a disorder incident involving a large group of young
Otorohanga
6 Te Kanawa Street 07 873 4016
people. No one was injured in the brawl. The decision was made in response to an increase in student fights, which have become more frequent and increasingly violent, Coull said in a letter to school whanau. “The safety and wellbeing of our students and staff remain our top priority and immediate action is necessary to restore a secure learning environment.” Coull said the school understood that moving to online learning was a significant decision, but the safety and wellbeing of students and staff was top priority. The temporary measure was designed to help de-escalate tensions and allow the college to put effective solutions in place. Coull said the school was taking additional measures to prevent similar incidents, including reinforcing the college’s behaviour expectations, continuing to educate students on conflict resolution and positive communication and consulting with local law enforcement. Coull joined police sergeant Heyden Nunn to address
Learning went online at Ōtorohanga College following a brawl last week.
students on Thursday when a zero tolerance to negative behaviour was shared. “I want to stress that this issue is not only for the college to address, but that of our wider community,” Coull said. Police have spoken to those involved and followed up with families.