The town the Government couldn’t kill
Asmall group of Brooklands residents are determined to keep the red-zoned community alive. CHARLIE GATES talks to stayers who have lived in the town for decades.
When departing Brooklands residents took the street signs as souvenirs, Les Griffiths decided to do something about it. The 79-year-old, who has lived in Brooklands for 53 years, is one of about two dozen people who have decided to stay in the redzoned Canterbury town.
He didn’t want to live in a place where the streets have no name, so he built new signs out of wood and hand-painted the names of the streets where he spent his adult life and raised a family.
Then he sent his son up a ladder to install the new street signs on lamp posts across his Brooklands neighbourhood.
‘‘I put them up real high so you couldn’t see how bad they were,’’ he says. ‘‘I still have three to do. Emergency services couldn’t find here. There were no names for the streets. Nobody knew what they were. Even with GPS you could get lost.’’
It is one way that a small group of determined red zone stayers are keeping their community alive.
Brooklands is the little town the Government couldn’t kill.
Most of the township, on the banks of the Styx River, was red zoned by the Government in 2011.
About 500 homes were red zoned, but a small group of about 25 residents declined the Government offer for their home and decided to stay.
They were determined to keep the community alive and remain in the place they had called home for decades and, in some cases, generations.
It has been a tough battle. They have lived through the slow unpicking of their neighbourhood, fear of burglars and uncertainty over whether the Government would compulsorily purchase their land.
Jan Burney has lived in Brooklands for 30 years and had decided before the 2011 earthquakes to see out her life in the town. She declined the Government’s red zone offer. ‘‘We love the area and we could not see ourselves anywhere. We were connected to the land. There is something here.
‘‘We kept our community together. It was hard yards. There was a deliberate push to keep us all together. That is what kept us here, knowing that there is going to be someone here to keep the community going and give support. There was a determination.’’
That determination can be seen in a series of hand-written signs Burney and Gayle Sinclair attached to lamp posts around Brooklands. The signs say things like ‘‘Residents and ratepayers still live here.’’ and ‘‘Brooklands. Paradise. Respect’’.
They were in response to demolition crews damaging their roads. They feared the roads would never be repaired or replaced and so wanted to protect them.
‘‘We were sick and tired of chasing diggers down the road gouging holes in our road. We were trying to keep our roads,’’ says Burney.
Burney says the decision to stay in Brooklands was not political.
‘‘There was no intention to defy the Government at all.’’
Brooklands resident and stayer Trish Kickhefer said it was scary when homes were being demolished around them.
‘‘All the empty houses and the scruffiness of the area. One day there is a house with a door and the next day there is no door because of all the pillaging. There were a lot of cars driving around the area that weren’t from here. It was scary,’’ she says.
She said the decision to stay in Brooklands put a strain on her marriage.
‘‘I wanted my husband to sign up. There was a lot of pressure on us as a couple. He didn’t want to go and I wanted to be out of it all.
‘‘It was very stressful. I had the house packed up and he said: ‘I can’t do it, Trish.’ I swore at him and he said ‘I will make it up to you’. I’m not sure what I got out of that.’’
Margaret Spencer’s parents bought a bach in Brooklands in 1940. She has lived in the township since she was 12 and has no plans to leave. ‘‘I remember my father saying that the only way he would leave Brooklands was to be carried out and that is exactly what happened. I have that same feeling.’’
She compares her fear during the demolition process to how her mother felt in Brooklands during World War II, when there were fears of a Japanese land invasion.
‘‘You couldn’t sleep. It was worse then when my mother was scared of the Japanese coming over here in the 40s. The submarine was seen going through. She was petrified. My father took us all back to town.’’
But, Burney says it has become easier to live in Brooklands now most of the demolition has finished. The clearance process has left a handful of homes in a surprisingly neat setting. Unlike the cleared wasteland in the red zone east of Christchurch city centre, Brooklands still feels like a community. The remaining homes are neat and clearly much loved. The streets are clean and relatively intact. Local residents still get their post and there is an immaculate playground and park in the centre of the town.
‘‘It was scary before because we were wondering what was going to happen, but we have got breathing space now. We are not going anywhere. We would chain ourselves to a tree or something if they came now,’’ says Burney.
‘‘The only people that could afford to decline the government offer were those without a mortgage. That means the remaining population in Brooklands is now older, Burney says.
‘‘The Pied Piper took the children away. There are no children. It is just older people.’’
Brooklands residents estimate about 22 people have decided to stay in the town. A government spokeswoman said 35 property owners had not settled with the Crown in Brooklands, but that includes vacant land. The spokeswoman said there was ‘‘no suggestion of any compulsory acquisition’’.
The remaining Brooklands residents are enjoying watching local wildlife return. Quails, rabbits and bell birds have come back to the neighbourhood.
When Les Griffiths moved to Brooklands at the age of 23 in the 1960s, it was all fields. During half a century, he has watched a small town rise and fall around him. Now, it is all fields again. ‘‘We are just going back to where we were.’’