I’ve found the perfect way to ease the traffic burden on Lake Road between Takapuna and Devonport, but unfortunately a lot of people are not going to like it.

After much investigation, and talking to my contacts at the coal face, it has become very evident that Devonport is being used as nothing more than a huge, free car park during the working week. 

Lake Road is hugely busy between Takapuna and Devonport between the hours of 7am and 8am.  This combines with the school traffic and the now endless parade of trucks from the Ryman Healthcare Retirement Village project.  There are many hundreds of cars being driven from the East Coast Bays, Albany and Takapuna areas to park in Devonport, blocking many of the suburban streets, and all of the waterfront from the Ferry Buildings to North Head. People are leaving their cars there all day, getting the ferry to the city to either work there, or get on the train to outer areas for their working day. They are returning later in the day to clog up the road heading north out of Devonport. If you drive around during the day in Devonport, the majority of the suburban streets are clogged by people parked there. It is getting to the point where even residents can’t park outside their own homes.

This is becoming very concerning to business people in Devonport, if people can’t park and do their local shopping, they’ll stop coming. It is time to bring in local resident’s parking permits, so that residents can park in Devonport and people who don’t live in Devonport have a two hour limit. As you know so well, I am fully anti these Parking wardens, maybe I will have to eat my own words in regards to this. 

Another one of the problems is twelve thousand cars coming into New Zealand every month. Every household has 2 or 3 cars, instead of, in earlier times, just the one car.

Just getting back to the Devonport situation, the waterfront on weekdays is a real eyesore, completely cluttered with cars. We have a beautiful stretch of waterfront, and many people enjoy walking, running or cycling along it. There must be a two hour limit imposed on this area, and strictly monitored. It’s not fair on tourists wanting to come to Devonport, and finding the whole place is a huge carpark. 

Another thing that I am really annoyed about, is the construction now of an Electric charging station right outside the beautiful Esplanade Hotel on the main road. Why is this not being put on a side road, it surely doesn’t need to be right on our beautiful waterfront? Was there any consultation about the location of this, does anyone know how this eventuated or is another one of Auckland Transport’s decisions made arbitrarily without anyone knowing? While we are talking about Auckland Transport, I see after almost two years since the demolition of the Devonport Yacht Club wharf, nothing has been done to rebuild the wharf that has traditionally been used for so many people for fishing, swimming, loading dinghies for the yachts moored in the Bay.

I’ve been writing this column now for around seven years, and I have quoted so many situations with the information given to me from my men at the coal face. Only one time in all these years have I been questioned about my information, and this was from the Devonport RSA, when I was furious about the construction of the stone walls at the entrance to Memorial Drive in Devonport. I had a call from one of the members of the RSA refuting my costings.  After much discussion, we both agreed that the information I received was not quite right. I’m not often wrong, but I agreed that I was on this sole occasion.

Many many of you would have driven by the Takapuna Grammar School over the last two years and noticed the beautiful brick school building, constructed in 1927, covered with a huge amount of plastic wrap. The school has been going through a major rebuild and I am led to believe the earthquake strengthening that should have been done properly some 25 years ago, was not done properly, after all. So, now 25 years later they are doing all the works again. I am led to believe that the costs are up to close to $50 million, with the Engineering Consultant fees up to close on $15 million. I have been told by a very good authority that there seems to be an endless amount of cheques being written to pay for works that should have been done properly just over two decades ago. I think there should be an investigation to see what has been happening here. At the end of the day, it is our money as tax payers that is paying for this. 

It is time for us all to take more notice of what is going on in our local areas, and not hesitate to question our local Council members or even our local MP about what is happening. It seems to me that we are gradually being coerced into living our lives as per the ideals and visions of the bureaucrats – who see us all happily cycling on the flat roads of Auckland in the perpetually sunny weather. Ha.