Tower talks
Sale on hold after owners get call from Govt about memorial idea
It’s staying regardless, it’s just whether it stays to be a memorial or it stays to be a house. Scott Phillips
The owner of the Lake Alice water tower says he is in talks with the Crown about selling the structure so it can be turned into a memorial for victims of abuse in care.
A report by the Abuse in Care Royal Commission into the hospital’s Child and Adolescent Unit said use of electric shocks and paraldehyde injections to punish children in the 1970s was torture.
The hospital was closed in 1999 and later demolished, with the site now farmland.
The three-storey concrete water tower and its pump station are now its only remnants.
The tower is owned by Whanganui couple Scott Phillips and Trudy Reeves, and in December, the Chronicle reported the building had been listed for sale at $150,000.
The sale of the tower has now been put on hold, as Phillips said he was called by the assistant director of the Crown’s Redress Committee for the hospital.
The commission’s report recommended the Government build regional memorials as a way of recognising the hospital’s victims.
The Redress Committee’s assistant director told Phillips they were interested in turning the tower into a memorial.
“We would love to sell it to the Government to make it into a memorial.
“That’s [ . . . ] our preferred option,” Phillips said.
The committee made it clear this was not a commitment to buy the tower, Phillips said, but it was a commitment to have a discussion.
The couple had yet to formally meet with the committee but hoped to do so in coming weeks.
The committee would discuss the proposal with the couple and make a recommendation to the Government about buying the tower.
Phillips said it would be a good time to buy the tower.
“It’s on everyone’s mind, and it’s for sale.
“We don’t know where it’s going to lead, but we’ve told
everyone at the moment we’d rather try and sell it to the Government than not.”
Phillips said they had been contacted by two survivors of the facility since listing the tower, and they were also in support of the idea.
The couple said they needed the money from the sale to fund renovations for another of their properties, but they were willing to wait.
Outside survivors of the hospital, Phillips said they had been receiving multiple emails each day from people interested in the tower.
“We’ve got 20 to 30 people [who] already want to be kept in the loop about what’s happening, so there’s obviously a huge demand for people who want to know about it or people who want to buy it,” he said.
Whether the tower was sold to the Government or a private buyer, Phillips was sure it wouldn’t be going anywhere.
“It’s staying regardless, it’s just whether it stays to be a memorial or it stays to be a house,” he said.