Chorus will clean up its mess in Kaitaia

Chorus was long gone by Thursday last week, but Ian Macnee had no trouble seeing where they had been. Picture / Peter Jackson

The installation of fibre is a welcome sight to most in Kaitaia, but one resident is not happy with the mess Chorus is leaving behind.

Ian Macnee said part of the berm outside the RSA in Matthews' Avenue, which he had kept neatly mown for years, was a mess, with a strip of metal between the footpath and lawn, hunks of concrete poking out of the ground and a muddy channel that had been cut through the footpath and was apparently going to be left like that, at least for the rest of the year.

It was a health and safety issue, but neither Chorus nor the Far North District Council, which owned and was ultimately responsible for the footpath and berm, were interested.

FNDC told him it was not a council problem, while Chorus had said the work would be done, probably in December.

The ground had been excavated in June, he said, meaning reinstatement would follow six months later. Chorus had also told him that reinstatement had to wait until the technicians had finished, but they had gone more than two months ago, and a section of footpath had been re-concreted.

"It's the same outside my place, on the corner of Pukepoto and Lake roads," he said. "They've left it with metal and bits of concrete sticking out of the ground. Surely walking away and leaving it like that for six months can't be part of the contract."

He could fix it, but he hadn't made the mess, and didn't see why he should.

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Some work, including removal of concrete, was done by a contractor for Chorus at the RSA on Thursday afternoon. A spokesman for Broadspectrum said it was also planned to lay top soil in Pukepoto Rd, but that would not be done until the weather was more settled. The channel cut through the footpath had nothing to do with Chorus, but would be repaired.