Retailers: AT have us on road to ruin
Kathleen Haimes says she has lost $100,000 and been told by her accountant to close her business since Auckland Transport (AT) mucked up the parking outside her shop for a cycleway.
Haimes has been designing and selling furniture in the “Black Box” group of shops on the corner of Richmond Rd and Surrey Crescent for 18 years in what has been a “really vibrant, busy, busy area”.
Not any more, says Haimes: “We are all on the verge of closing. We are all struggling and if they do any more . . . none of these shops will survive.”
Haimes said they were destination shops, people came and went, and needed car parks. AT removed car parks with the first cycleway project and proposed a roundabout or set of lights on the corner that would take away more car parks.
A dairy being refurbished across the road would be a waste of time because there would be nowhere for people to stop for five minutes.
Across Richmond Rd from Haimes, Barry Jujnovich has run West Lynn Painters and Panelbeaters for 48 years, in which time he has seen four or five accidents.
He says AT is spending millions on a cycleway that serves no purpose and is not needed. Proper pedestrian crossings were needed.
“It is going to take six months minimum to redo the stuff-up they did in the first place.”
At Siostra restaurant in West Lynn, opened in 2014 by Esther and Beki Lamb, Esther said AT had delivered a “badly designed, ugly, senseless refit of the West Lynn village that to my knowledge no one in the community asked for, except the cycleway lobby”.
Esther said she was not against cyclists, and “we sucked it up . . . But not twice”.
“I dread another round of construction,” said Esther, whose business has had a 12.5 per cent rent increase. “We could not sustain a drop in turnover for any length of time. AT should fix the worst faults and leave it as it is.”
Local and paraplegic William Gruar is unhappy AT created a steep slope to traverse in his wheelchair to a new pedestrian crossing built as part of the first cycleway project.
He printed an open letter for people to sign saying, “the cycle paths should be abolished” and took it to the Grey Lynn Returned Services Club: “To my surprise, 50 people signed. I ran out of forms. The anger was palpable.”