TE AWAMUTU NEWS | 1
THURSDAY JUNE 5, 2025
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It’s plankety blank
By Chris Gardner
Waipā District Council has removed one of seven 70-yearold park benches in Te Awamutu and Districts War Memorial Park with an angle grinder before the park’s independent maintenance committee could finish restoring it. The seat, installed by public subscription with the opening of the park in the early 1950s. was one of seven park maintenance committee members Marc Dawson and Peter Fletcher had spent $500 restoring in response to council plans to spend $58,000 replacing selected seating and rubbish bins in the park. In last week’s lead story in The News council community services manager Brad Ward made it clear the plan to replace the70-year-old benches would continue. Dawson said he was disappointed and shocked to discover a council contractor removing the metal piping of the last seat with a battery powered angle grinder when he returned restored wooden slats to the bench for installation on Thursday. He understood council community services manager Brad Ward had given the order to remove the seat on health and safety grounds. The committee had put cones around the piping to warn od tripping hazards. Dawson has asked the council to rethink plans to invest in replacing selected seating and rubbish bins in the park, quoting the council’s reserve manual that allows the
Te Awamutu and Districts War Memorial Park historic seat restorers Marc Dawson, left, and Peter Fletcher with restored seat slats – planks with nowhere to go.
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council to review and change its plans if the situation changes in the park. “I have yet to get a response from my request for a review under the Waipā District Council Reserves Manual section 1.2.3,”
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was planned,” he said. The removal of the seat left a concrete pad in the middle of the lawn which the committee has taped off to prevent people from tripping on it. Dawson is a regular presenter
in the public forum of the Te Awamutu-Kihikihi Community Board. “I am disappointed, if that was a staff response,” said board chair Ange Holt. Holt had recently warned Dawson his work would be for nothing, as council staff had made up their mind after herself complaining staff did not listen to community feedback. “I fully understand that there is a process to be followed, and that Marc and Pete should not have done what they did, but they have made everything safe,” she said. Holt said the outcomes of the council’s draft annual plan included community collaboration. “For me I realise that’s a little bit hard to support, I suppose, if that’s how they are going to react.” One of the objectives of the council’s draft financial strategy was achieving more together through partnerships and collaboration. “From the community board perspective, I just found the lack flexibility frustrating. I feel we have a disconnect between the high-level plans and what is being delivered.” Councillor Lou Brown, who sits on the community board with Bruce Thomas, was concerned to hear of the removal of the seat. “I did not think we would get to this sort of stage,” he said. “We can’t have a them and us attitude. I think it’s very negative.” Brown said he would be raising the situation with fellow councillors and staff.
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