Napier mayor Bill Dalton says War Memorial's co-branding "not ideal"

Mayor Bill Dalton said the council did not handle the Napier War Memorial refurbishment and branding as well as it could have. Photo / File

Napier mayor Bill Dalton has admitted the co-branding of the controversial war memorial building is "not ideal" and repeated an earlier apology over the handling of the rebranding.

"We - Napier City Council - did not handle the war memorial refurbishment and rebranding as well as we could have," Dalton said yesterday.

The name Napier War Memorial Centre was repainted back on to the Marine Parade-based building on Monday.

It was formerly known by most as the Napier War Memorial Hall, then more recently the Napier Conference Centre.

"It's no secret that I strongly oppose the change of the name to Napier War Memorial Centre," Dalton said.

"I argued we should revert the name to Napier War Memorial Conference Centre which had been the building's name without public demur since 2001."

Dalton said a majority of councillors disagreed and settled on the name Napier War Memorial Centre for the site.

He said having two names on the building was "not ideal" which is why he was in favour the "conference centre" option.

"It's one I've got behind and support and you can't run a conference facility without branding."

Napier city councillor Kirsten Wise earlier said she was thrilled to see "war memorial" back on the building, but was not happy it was still co-branded.

"It's fantastic that it's back on there, but as far as I'm concerned it's still not satisfactory that we still have two names on the building," Wise said.

"You've got Napier Conference Centre around on the front, and now Napier War Memorial Centre around on the side wall."

Dalton said as a council it was important that it recognises its mistakes, learns from them, then does better.

"We've changed the name back to what a majority of councillors wish. We've thrown ourselves into researching the names of our Rolls of Honour - and found 230 names to be added to the First World War roll, another 100 for the Second World War (as well as 20 duplicate errors and four people wrongly listed as killed in action.

"We will get this right.

"What matters here is not individual agendas or blinkered campaigns but honouring our fallen. We owe our old soldiers everything. On this I'm sure we all agree."