Our thanks again to Sustainable Coastlines and a group of staff from ANZ who got together today to give a bit of love to our beautiful stretch of coastline between Pukerua Bay and Hongoeka Bay. Together they managed to remove about 1000 litres (50 rubbish bags!) of litter from the coastline, including a 30 metre long piece of PVC pipe.
Note: there is a short survey below – please provide your feedback on this, so we can report back to Porirua City Council.
In 2016 the Residents’ Association was approached about concerns around children’s and pedestrians’ safety outside the school. Recently Porirua City Council presented us their plans to make Rawhiti Road and Teihana Road safer, as outlined here. They propose that the following safety measures be put in place:
If you are a local resident, please fill out this short survey; your feedback is most appreciated.
We’re very pleased to see that NZTA has put up a “No engine braking” sign for south-bound traffic. It’s been a long battle even just to get signs installed, and David Olsen deserves credit for persisting with it. We’d like to find ways of stopping engine braking disturbing residents entirely, but this is a good start.
Last Friday we had a couple of hours of working at the gardens – weeding, cutting grass and a bit of planning. I think 8 of us were there – sorry we didn’t get you all on the photos. This week activity is planned for Monday from around 4pm – everyone is welcome to come along and join in / have a chat about what we are doing. Things to do this week include planting Comfrey and other support plants around the trees to help them with fixing minerals, nitrogen etc. It would be great if we could do something together every week – so message your email if you would like to be put on the emailing list – and let us know if you would like to ‘take ownership’ for one week or more – to make sure things keep moving ahead.
Tuesday, November 14, 2018
Present: Iain MacLean, June Penhay, Kate Dreaver, Brian Sullivan, Paul FitzGerald, Dale Williams (PCC); Community: Mel Galletly, Christine Ford
Apologies: Pauline Morse, David Olsen. Continue reading “November 2018 Residents’ Association meeting minutes”
The first batch of 2019 calendars have arrived and been delivered to those who ordered them, thanks for supporting us! We have more still for sale. Below are sample images of January and July. This time we’ve marked handy things on the calendar for you, like school term dates, recycling days, and your friendly local residents’ association meetings, as well as the usual public holidays and lunar phases. All printed on quality stock and yours for only $18. Please indicate if you are local, and someone will drop them off at your house, otherwise its $5 extra for postage anywhere else in New Zealand.
Funds go towards the Residents’ Association, to help pay for things like annual insurance, the access licence across Kiwirail land for the community garden, and so on.
Buy your 2019 calendar(s) now!
The Pukerua Bay School Board of Trustees (BoT) and the Pukerua Bay Residents Association (PBRA) have met to discuss the future management of our local hall, in an attempt to find a way forward.
We met last Thursday night (22 November) to discuss options for how the hall committee might be involved in the future management of the hall and what role they might have.
The Board outlined its responsibilities as the property manager, and its obligation to develop a policy that reflects those responsibilities and is consistent with the Ministry of Education’s and legal requirements.
The hall committee described the strong feeling of attachment that many people in the community have to the hall, which they have developed over many years of children attending the school, and the hall being the centre of many community events over the past 45 years.
The two groups agreed that everyone in the community shares a guardianship role over the hall and that a relationship between the hall committee and Board should build on that.
We spent quite a bit of time clearing up differences in the interpretation of events in the past 15 months and acknowledged that we could have communicated better over that time.
The administration of the booking system remains a sticking point for the hall committee. They would like to explore other options that reflect their expectations and that would be acceptable to the Board while addressing the Board’s concerns and legal liabilities.
There is genuine goodwill between the two groups to find a way forward. A smaller group of us will continue to meet to find some agreements we can take to the wider group for ratification.
Those present at the meeting were all the members of the BoT, the new school principal Chris Els, deputy principal Andrew Wooster, the Hall Committee and PBRA chair Iain MacLean.
Conor Twyford (BoT) & Iain MacLean (PBRA)
We’ve had a message from NZTA about Paekakariki Hill Road being closed this Friday night. It is a trial to test how effective it is in stopping people using it as a shortcut in heavy traffic, thereby causing more delays when merging at Paekakariki. Continue reading “Paekakariki Hill Road closed this Friday night”
Bags of rubbish collected from beach
A good turnout of locals and friends netted many bags of rubbish from the beach to the south of Pukerua Bay this morning.
The clean up was organised by the Sustainable Coastlines group (thanks Ben, Oliver and the rest of the crew), with the support of Kathmandu.
Around 30 people started from the pou at 10am and heading along towards Wairaka Rock with bags and a determination to strip the beach clear of rubbish.
The group got almost halfway along the coast to Hongoeka and brought back all the rubbish they found, apart from a very long, heavy plastic pipe and a large sheet of plastic that they couldn’t manage along with all the bags. But they did manage to bring back a large plastic float, which took two people to carry.
A lot of the rubbish was small pieces of plastic, often mixed in with the seaweed near the waterline – hard to see, but if you took your time, you could find a lot of it. There were a lot of bottle caps, small wrappers, pieces of string or rope and lids of all sorts. The pieces might seem too small to bother with, but small pieces are the right size for fish and seabirds to try to eat, and therefore dangerous.
Most of it appeared to have washed up on the beach, rather than being dropped there, but it all comes from somewhere – washed down a stormwater drain or blown into the sea from somewhere – so it’s a good reminder that it is just as important to pick up the small pieces of litter as the big pieces.
Well done everyone, and thanks for all the hard work.
Signing in before heading out
Some of the pieces of plastic were very small and hard to see
Some of the larger pieces were very obvious
Bags filled up quickly with all sizes of rubbish
Just some of the rubbish collected
The workers enjoying a tasty lunch laid on by the organisersFantastic news! Repairs will start on the retaining wall under the footpath on State Highway 1 between the shops and pedestrian bridge next week. The footpath will be closed during this time, and you’ll have to go around it (along Te Motu Rd and Rawhiti Road, or cut through the school).
We received the following media statement from Porirua City Council yesterday:
Pukerua Bay work underway
A section of footpath in Pukerua Bay will be closed for six weeks, starting next week, due to retaining wall work.
General Manager City Infrastructure Mike Evans says the work is scheduled to start on Wednesday 21 November.
“Work will be done on the footpath just south of the pedestrian overpass at Pukerua Bay (between the shops at Pukerua Bay and Te Kura Road) and the footpath will be closed while the work is being carried out.
“For safety reasons, pedestrians will not be able to access the footpath and will need to use the Rawhiti Road overbridge instead.
“The contractor will put up signs and barriers, and we are advising cyclists and pedestrians to be cautious when they are in the area and use the overbridge when they are travelling between the shops at Pukerua Bay and Te Kura Road. During this time, the road shoulder will also be closed, so cyclists are also advised to use the overbridge.
The work is weather dependent but is expected to take around six weeks. “We appreciate everyone’s patience while the work is being carried out,” says Mr Evans.
We will issue main updates through the Pukerua Bay Residents Association and the Porirua City Facebook channels and on poriruacity.govt.nz/pukerua-bay-works.
It was thought the speed limit was going to be reduced, but Capital Journeys has told us that isn’t going to happen.
