Westney Methodist Church will be resited not far from Auckland Airport.
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Q: I see the beautiful little wooden church on George Bolt Drive at the edge of the airport commercial development has been removed. Any idea where it has gone? Hopefully repositioned somewhere quieter?
Andy Gibson, Onehunga.
A: The church, Westney Methodist, is one of the buildings that
had to be moved in preparation for the construction of a new northern runway at the airport. It is on a temporary site before being relocated to a heritage precinct in Nixon Rd with other historic buildings. The stained glass windows were removed from the building before it was shifted, so that they would not be damaged. Graves around the church also had to be relocated, many of them to Mangere Lawn Cemetery.
The church was built in 1856, enlarged in 1887, and a vestry added in 1918. Another of the buildings moved for the runway construction is the Westney Homestead, built in 1855. It was home to four generations of the Westney family, and more recently has been occupied by sharemilkers. The Westney family donated the land on which the church was built, and in fact George Bolt Drive was originally known as Westney Rd.
Another old house nearby was unable to be saved, but materials from that will be used in the renovation of the house and church.
The costs of moving and renovating the house and church will be funded by the airport.
Q: For traffic travelling from Esmonde Rd, heading north on to the Northern Motorway, there is a green left-turn arrow at the intersection opposite the southbound Esmonde Rd offramp. I assume this is to allow left-lane traffic to get to the motorway north while the straight-ahead Akoranga Drive traffic is stopped to allow traffic from Auckland City to get to Esmonde Rd. Unfortunately the arrow signal is virtually invisible as it points away from the traffic it is meant to benefit. Could it please be correctly aligned?
Keith Jolly, Hauraki.
A: The green arrow has now been moved, so it should be clear to motorists that southbound onramp traffic doesn't need to stop.
New traffic signals going in at the intersection of the Akoranga station access road and Esmonde Rd will use a specially-designed lens. The signal will only be able to be seen from a narrow field of vision, so that only the motorists who need to see it will be able to. This, hopefully, will avoid the problem of southbound onramp traffic stopping unnecessarily.
Clever chaps, those roading people.
