Ardern’s eye on tensions over revamp
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is keeping close tabs on the uproar over the Mt Albert town centre upgrade. As MP for Mt Albert, the Prime Minister is sending two members from her electorate office to a meeting on Monday with AT officers and the Albert-Eden Local Board to get briefed on the issue.
Writing in the Mt Albert Inc blog this week, editor Bruce Morris said Ardern would have in mind comments made at the opening ceremony by AT chairman Dr Lester Levy that the project had not been perfect.
“Fourteen weeks on [there are still] endless problems, omissions and flaws,” Morris said.
Turnover at many Mt Albert shops has not recovered after falling 50 per cent during the construction period. “It’s a ghost town,” said Bhaidas Bhula, who has been forced to lay off two of four staff at the New North Pharmacy in the town centre.
Bhula said takings dropped 50 per cent during construction and had been tracking at those levels since the Prime Minister, Auckland Mayor Phil Goff and Levy opened the $6.5 million upgrade in May.
He blamed the loss of parking and light phasing at the busy intersection in the town centre for fewer customers. Rat-running through local streets to avoid the intersection and lack of policing by AT for a clearway zone are other concerns in the community.
In a recent posting on Morris’ blog, Mt Albert Business Association communications co-ordinator Dalline Leng said the upgrade was a failure and bringing some businesses close to collapse.
She spoke of tenants barely surviving and one business owner whose total takings in one day were $10.
The community was promised great things out of the upgrade but all they got were wider footpaths, which, at the expense of parking, were not worth it, Leng said.
Albert-Eden Local Board chairman Peter Haynes, who told the Herald in February that the upgrade would reinvigorate the town centre, was disappointed with AT and council staff for not grasping the urgency to resolve a number of issues.
An AT spokesman said the transport body was addressing traffic concerns and its enforcement team was ticketing and towing motorists in the clearway during the evening peak.
“AT has a dedicated person monitoring the light phasing during a settling in period — we are making changes . . . and are surveying traffic volumes in surrounding streets.”