Strapped to a truck and driven off: New World Santa's retirement mystery

Santa was taken to retirement on a small truck Tuesday morning. Photo / Christian Fuller

The iconic Santa on top of Hastings New World has officially retired from Christmas supermarket duty.

The 8m high, 4.5m wide and 700kg Santa was strapped to a small truck, legs hanging off the back, and transported to his retirement location on Tuesday.

"Santa has had a great run on top of our roof since 2002 and we're sad to see him go, but he's found a new home and will have a comfortable and relaxing retirement," owner of Hastings New World Jeff Yates said.

Yates declined to elaborate on where or what exactly Santa's comfortable retirement would be.

One option is of course, the North Pole, but Hawke's Bay Today understands not even Santa's reindeer were willing to travel down from the Arctic to carry a 700kg Santa roughly 14,000km home.

The Santa, previously of Splash Planet fame, has a long and colourful history in Hastings.

Previous New World owners had saved him from a spot at the dump, giving him a makeover and some internal restructuring at the turn of the millenium.

He proudly sat atop the New World overlooking Hastings each Christmas for 17 years.

His retirement was forced this year because of Santa's susceptibility to wind in his old age, which also makes him difficult to get up and down from the roof.

A large crane was used, and perfect Southern Hemisphere conditions were required, to hoist the jolly man in place for the last time, where he spent a month and a bit waving goodbye.

Yates in December had asked the public for suggestions on where Santa would be retiring to, but that will remain a mystery, until he's spotted of course.