Theft of bus shelter has police pulling out stops

The bus shelter before its vanishing act.

The old saying that anything in Northland not nailed down is likely to be stolen will have to be updated following the theft of an entire bus shelter.

The steel shelter, which was not nailed down but was bolted to a concrete pad at the corner of Waimate North Rd and Te Ahu Ahu Rd, vanished on December 6.

The bus shelter after its vanishing act.

The theft forced Waimate North children to wait in the rain for the bus during the last weeks of the school year, but police say they know who could have taken it.

A car towing a trailer with the missing bus shelter was stopped that night by Kaikohe police but at that stage it had not been reported stolen. Police, however, took the details of the vehicle, which was registered to a Horeke address, and plan to recover the shelter.

"We're still working on it. But we know who has it," a police spokesman said.

Local residents have been landscaping the area around the now absent shelter. One local, who did not want to be named, said the first he knew of the theft was when he saw a child waiting for the bus in pouring rain.

He asked, "Where's the shelter?" to which the soaked child replied, "It's been stolen".

The bus shelter was one of many donated by Totalspan as part of its Undercover Kids programme.

Karen Adams, who owns Totalspan's Bay of Islands/Hokianga franchise with her husband Mel, said more than 350 shelters had been built on rural bus routes around the country.

They were made from Coloursteel cladding with Perspex windows so the bus driver could see if children were waiting. Depending on the site they were usually mounted on a concrete slab. The shelter on Te Ahu Ahu Rd was the first to be stolen in the Far North, though two others had been damaged.

"It's the kids that miss out when that happens," she said.

Anyone can apply for a shelter by going to totalspan.co.nz/community-projects and filling in the form.