I read late last year about a regeneration
programme for Pukekohe. The information did not give me the ingredients
necessary to get excited about our future, well Pukekohe’s anyway.
Apparently
great development is going to be ‘Unlocked’ (with a capital ‘U’).
The
information certainly confirmed much of what we already know, special housing
developments, rapidly increasing population, the need for better transport
connections, attracting more investment.
Yes we know a strong local economy is
vital, and the cornerstone to much needed employment, but what is the answer to
the “So what” question?
The Maori word ‘Panuku’ in English is a verb meaning
“to move, move on”. To move on is an encouraging but rather vague indication
of, what exactly?
I searched the Auckland Council website and found the Panuku
Development Auckland page which told me it was about shaping spaces for
Aucklanders to love. Great news I was on the track. There was a Project Map tab
so I naturally clicked to see where we featured. Well the news is, we don’t.
Franklin isn’t on the map.
But I was not giving up. I clicked on the Projects
tab and scrolled down the list of great photographs with location labels but
there was nothing with Franklin, or Pukekohe, or Waiuku on it.
Then I clicked
on the ‘Latest News’ tab and up came an aerial photo of Pukekohe with a label,
‘Panuku to help shape Pukekohe’s future – a new future is being envisaged for
Pukekohe’. I clicked on that, excited that I was getting closer to something
actually informative about our future, but no it was, disappointingly, word for
word the PR statement.
But wait, I spotted some small print right down the
bottom of the webpage, ‘Board Reports’ so clicked on it and up popped a heading
for future meeting dates (there were none) then a list of previous meeting
dates, back a couple of years (well that is as far as I could be bothered
looking on a quick scan).
At the time of looking, the last meeting of the Board
of Directors was on the 28th
November 2018. The notice advised, ‘The general nature of business will be to
consider the Chief Executive’s Report on the company’s operations....’ I
thought I would have a look at what transpired at the previous meeting held on
24th October. Apparently the general nature of business was to
consider the Chief Executive’s Report on the company’s operations.
I thought I
might go have a look at what was under the date for other meetings before that
and found that, yep you guessed it, the general nature of business was to
consider the Chief Executive’s Report on the company’s operations.
Having
clicked through a bunch of those I got bored and my partner yelled, “Are you
ready for some dinner?” and I said “Yes thank you.” Then left the computer with
my anticipatory excitement deflated.
I really was interested in finding out,
beyond the PR announcement, where we were moving on to.
First published in the Franklin County News, page 4, Conversations, “Pukekohe
Project Plans Hard to Find”, Tuesday 5th February 2019.
