Ex-councillor urges demolition action in CBD
A former Invercargill City councillor fears two CBD investors could walk away from the city block development project if the green light isn’t provided soon to start demolition.
Lindsay Thomas was both a councillor and an HWCP Management Ltd director up until the October election.
HWCP is the company that acquired almost an entire city centre block with plans to demolish and develop it.
Yesterday, Thomas told The Southland Times that all hands should be on deck at the council to ensure demolition could get under way. He acknowledged that there was a process to work through, in regards to obtaining building consent and signing off traffic and demolition management plans, but said getting it sorted as soon as possible was vital for Invercargill.
However, a council spokesperson told the Times: ‘‘Matters are well progressed.’’
The spokesperson said four management plans would probably be signed off by the end of the month. ‘‘Significant steps have been made . . . with the applicant having secured variations to some of the resource consent conditions, which should streamline the process.’’
Four building consent applications have been lodged. Two of
The rusted cannon on Ruapuke Island is a bit of a mystery.
Called Tuhawaiki’s cannon, it may have been purchased or traded by Tuhawaiki on a visit to Sydney in 1840 or may have come from the wreck of the Elizabeth Henrietta, which came to grief on the island in 1824.
It seems that there were at least two cannons and they were toppled off a cliff there. One was recovered about 1907, when it was exposed by erosion on a sandy beach, and restored to a position of prominence.
Taking flight to the island
The first Foveaux Strait aeroplane crossing took place on January 13, 1921, when Captain Buckley flew a DH9 to Stewart Island and returned an hour later. The plane had done service in the war and arrived in New Zealand in 1920.
It was converted to a passenger aircraft and flew over Mount Cook before the Foveaux Strait flight.
In 1923 it resumed its military career at Wigram and among the pilots who trained it were Hood and Moncreiff, who disappeared in 1928 while attempting the first trans-Tasman flight from Australia to New Zealand. The aircraft was scrapped in 1929.
Is there a problem, officer?
The first policeman stationed permanently in Southland was Daniel Ross, who was at Bluff from October 1856 to February 1857. He was replaced by Constable George Walker.
From one account: ‘‘Constable Walker was the sole limb of the law at Bluff, and he possessed a little bit of a watch-house, with his bed in one corner, while in the other was a tree stump to which was affixed a leg iron.
‘‘If the old fellow had to lock anyone up, he harnessed him to the leg iron, and then went to sleep by himself in the opposite corner.’’
A tale is told of the unfortunate constable. He had attempted to arrest three sailors for drunkenness but they managed to chain him up to his own leg iron.
Captain Elles came to Bluff the following day for a court case and, missing the policeman, found him chained up.
‘‘The Captain’s anger knew no bounds, and it was raised to fury when it was found that the key to the manacles was missing, and the constable was a fixture.
‘‘Captain Elles strode down to every ship in port, and swore on each quarterdeck that he would hang every man, woman and child of them from the yardarm.’’
Eventually Constable Walker was filed free. them were ready for signing off, subject to some conditions under the resource consent, the spokesperson said.
The city council was still awaiting further information from the applicant in relation to one consent application, while the fourth consent application was only lodged on Tuesday.
Thomas believed the city block development was critical for Invercargill’s future and there needed to be signs of progress.
‘‘If you are a tourist to town now you would wonder what is going on [with the empty CBD].
‘‘But if there is construction they can see there is something happening in the city.’’
Thomas was also worried that continued delays could prompt investors to walk away. ‘‘We can’t make them wait,’’ he said.
It’s understood the project’s key private investors, Geoff Thomson and Scott O’Donnell, had become frustrated after they initially hoped demolition would start last month.
An agreement is in place with anchor tenant Farmers to have it up and operating in the new retail precinct by November 2021. As part of the agreement, 25 per cent of the other retail outlets around Farmers need to be operational at the time it opens.