Mayor seeks new home for trust

North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams is appealing to his council to "bite the bullet" and back his bid to urgently resolve a festering community problem which it helped to create.

Tomorrow night, Mr Williams will ask the council to approve a search for suitable properties, of up to $630,000, to house the Birkenhead Northcote Community Facilities Trust by June.

He said the charitable trust, which organises community programmes such as children's holiday events, had been disadvantaged.

It had worked out of the Northcote War Memorial Hall for five years since its base in the Birkenhead Library was demolished.

There was no room for it to go back into the new $7.6 million library, opened last month, because the council made compromises on the library's size and layout to meet Environment Court decisions.

The trust could not keep using the hall - a heritage building - for offices and storage without regulatory consents and in the face of concerns about fire safety and masking of the world wars' roll of honour boards.

"I'm so worried there will be huge issues if a resource consent is sought for continued use of the hall and turn it into offices," said Mr Williams.

"There will be massive opposition to it and it's going to be like the Birkenhead Library saga and end up in the Environment Court.

"The trust community co-ordinator could end up with no premises at all and the Returned Services Association and local community want their hall available."

The way forward was to find a property that was fit for the trust's purposes and public use.

The hall too should have its safety and heritage problems looked at, Mr Williams said.