‘Microcosm of issues facing Auckland’

Jim Jackson and Keith Sharp know a thing or two about their Onehunga and Panmure communities and the politicking that goes on at election time.

For many years, Jackson has been front and centre of the Onehunga Enhancement Society, pushing for a new $28 million beach, to clean up Manukau Harbour and rallying against the east-west highway ploughing through the suburb.

Ditto for Sharp, the voice of the Panmure Action Group, which has been fighting a wave of plans for the suburb for the past 20 years.

“Panmure is a microcosm of many of the issues facing wider Auckland,” said Sharp.

There’s the Eastern Busway, a masterplan for the town centre and the Ta¯ maki Regeneration Company turning state houses into a mix of public and private homes.

The three projects, he said, are long-term, delays keep occurring and having a paralysing effect on the community.

Sharp said the community was not opposed to development, but often felt plans were not designed to benefit the people and town of Panmure, but planners’ academic vision of what an urban community should look like.

Another problem, he said, was getting caught up every three years in the political warfare of two opposing camps who wanted to control Panmure for their own ideological purposes.

Jackson, who runs a large electrical company in Onehunga, is frustrated at slow progress connecting a new beach with the Onehunga wharf, which has been acquired by the council’s development arm, Panuku.

“In the community, there is a lot of negativity towards that,” he said.

Jackson said there was no masterplan for Onehunga, and it had been that way for 15 years with nothing more than window dressing, officers in charge of the process and a weak local board.

“Panuku has been given the job of doing the (wharf) development but I don’t think they have the right skills to do it,” said Jackson.