Dialogue: Dither much longer and these buildings will fall

By TONY GEE

Long-term protection for two gems of New Zealand's heritage in the north is taking just about as long as the age of the historical treasures themselves. That's not altogether unusual for the Far North, where good things, like good cheese some might say, take time to happen.

But time is what authorities and agencies don't have if Kerikeri's Mission House and its fabled old Stone Store are to continue as living reminders of some of the country's earliest European activity.

The two buildings are at constant risk of flooding from the nearby Kerikeri River, which flows into the Stone Store Basin, and from heavy traffic pounding the surface of the road outside the store, which threatens to shake the historic structures apart. Historic Places Trust staff have been on flood alert twice in recent weeks, and in 1981 both buildings were badly damaged by floodwater.

The Stone Store has had nearly $1 million spent on it in recent years to repair traffic and water damage.

Some seven years ago plans were drawn up for a new road to bypass the basin to help to preserve and protect the Mission House - the country's oldest building - and the Stone Store.

The Kerikeri mission station, also known as Kemp House after the missionary family who lived there for a time, is a 179-year-old wooden structure. Nearby, the much-photographed and postcard-familiar 169-year-old Stone Store also pre-dates the Treaty of Waitangi, which was signed not far away in the Bay of Islands in 1840.

With this much priceless heritage at stake, plus tourist pulling power, little should have stood in the way of relatively quick and effective action to ensure the buildings did not remain under flood threat or pressure from heavy traffic movement.

A bypass road about 1.5km long, later tagged Heritage Bypass, was proposed to run between the western end of Kerikeri town across to Waipapa Rd. This would remove all heavy traffic from the road through the basin and could also involve doing away with the one-way traffic bridge across the river to eliminate all through traffic.

With the bridge and its flood-debris-attracting supports gone, flooding levels would recede because the supports could no longer act as a dam against which torrents of water back up in times of heavy rain.

Two birds killed with one stone, you might think. But it's never as easy as that. The price of that single stone to kill two problems inevitably comes down to what the Far North always lacks - money. So plans languish. Agencies and authorities talk and bicker. A major feasibility study has come and gone. Nothing has happened.

Estimated bypass costs are now $4.7 million but this could zoom to about $5.5 million if the basin bridge over the river is removed and a pedestrian access bridge built in its place.

Even a 40 per cent local share of the cost, with Transfund picking up the rest, would leave Far North ratepayers with more than $2 million to pay. As the district council's roading manager observed this month, "that's a big ask for the Far North."

Late last year, the council, with Historic Places Trust, Conservation Department, Anglican Church, local iwi and tourism group support, approached the Government for help. It sought funding for the bypass project to protect an area many believe should have World Heritage status, or at least status as a national heritage environment.

Transport Minister Mark Gosche replied by calling for yet more detail to fill what he said were significant information gaps before any construction funding proposal could be looked at by Transfund. An update of the earlier feasibility study and project cost-benefit analysis are now required before the minister will consider entertaining an application for a special grant to meet the local share of bypass costs.

So $100,000 more of ratepayers' money will soon go into more consultants' pockets for another study. This will no doubt report the same or similar details produced years ago in an effort to convince the Government it should pay some or all of the local share needed to protect part of our national heritage.

If that fails, perhaps we could ask that the buildings at least be moved out of harm's way to somewhere like Te Papa. That's sure to attract funding from somewhere. In the meantime, another year of traffic and another winter's floods will pass before the latest study is complete and more talk starts again - if there's much left to talk about.

Perhaps the district council's got it right: its strategic plan has brought the project forward in a quantum leap to 2005-2008 from an earlier schedule of 2011-2015 - subject to funding help being available, of course.