Kevin Watkins: Councillor, Santa driver, float maker

Hastings councillor Kevin Watkins (driving the car) with the famous Santa sleigh which brings Christmas cheer each year. Photo / Supplied

If a school were opened to teach the art of designing and building floats, Hastings councillor Kevin Watkins would be appointed honorary principal.

He has made almost 50 floats over the decades - bringing countless smiles to Hawke’s Bay residents either during the annual Hastings Blossom Parade or the Christmas Parade.

Watkins also built a huge Santa sleigh and reindeer float in 2000, which he drives around the streets of Hastings and Havelock North in the lead-up to Christmas each year, alongside his good mate Ross Sweatman, aka Santa Claus.

That combined with his outstanding work strengthening Chinese and New Zealand relations and his efforts as Hawke’s Bay’s longest-serving councillor (he has been a Hastings councillor since 2001) has seen him recognised as part of the 2023 New Year Honours.

Kevin Watkins driving one of his floats at the Hastings Blossom Parade in 2018. Photo / Warren Buckland

Watkins has been awarded a Queen’s Service Medal for services to the community and New Zealand-China relations.

Watkins, aged in his 70s, has been on 13 trips to China and he has become something of an ambassador to the country and Hastings’ official sister city Guilin.

He started the Chinese Lantern Festival in Hastings, which attracts large crowds each year when not disrupted by Covid.

Watkins also created the 2015 and 2017 Amazing China Face Races, connecting Hastings secondary school students with their Chinese counterparts across 23 Chinese provinces.

Kevin Watkins is now into an eighth term as a Hastings councillor after being re-elected in October. Photo / Paul Taylor

He has been awarded the Ambassador of Friendship of Shandon Province for his work.

Watkins told Hawke’s Bay Today last year that he loved taking the Santa float around the streets.

“It’s just the joy when people see Santa has come to their patch. That he has come to their front gate, that he’s waving in the street.

“It is just lovely to see people come out and acknowledge that.”