Pukekohe Project Plans Hard to Find

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   28^th 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 24^th 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 5^th February 2019.