KEY POINTS:
Ineffective local government is the reason it has taken 27 years to give major protection to two of New Zealand's oldest buildings, Far North Mayor Wayne Brown says.
Lessons from devastating floods in 1981 that threatened to sweep away the historic Stone Store and Kemp House in the Kerikeri Basin were not learned by Northland local bodies, which had since allowed development of housing and commercial areas on land that was a metre deep in water that year.
Mr Brown believes a lot of ineffective local government in the region is caused by split and widely misunderstood roles of district and regional councils.
He said at the formal opening by Prime Minister Helen Clark of the newly constructed, $17 million Kerikeri Heritage Bypass project road that the regional council in Whangarei had been inactive in meeting its river catchment management responsibilities and local Far North councils had been guilty of not raising the issue.
The lack of coherent catchment management plans for many Far North rivers is one reason the Far North District Council is trying to become a unitary authority like that "enjoyed by the lucky folk of Gisborne", Mr Brown says.
A unitary authority is a single local body whose functions, powers and responsibilities combine those of a district or city council with those of a regional council.
The Far North council under Mr Brown is already investigating how it will undertake the steps and process necessary for it to become a unitary authority.
The mayor told 250 people at the opening of the new 1.6km road in Kerikeri that there had been a history of misadventures before a bypass construction plan was developed to help protect the Stone Store Basin and its historic buildings from flooding.
The new route, from Waipapa Rd across the Kerikeri River to Kerikeri town, takes through-traffic out of the basin area.
The basin's single-lane concrete traffic bridge, which is said to act as a flood barrier and to threaten the old buildings when the river is running high, is being demolished.
"I thank the Prime Minister for her involvement [in the project] or we might never have got to the end of it," Mayor Brown said.
The Far North council now looked forward to the Stone Store Basin becoming a lively place with the store selling icecreams, wine and other items that gave 19th century settlers in the area a full life with traders and customers.
"We won't let it be just a museum," Mr Brown said of the Stone Store.
Helen Clark said the bypass project had been without precedent. "Unlike other roading projects it has not been about traffic management but about caring for and protecting New Zealand's heritage. It's the first time and probably the last in which you will find the Ministry for Culture and Heritage funding a road."
The project was fully funded, without ratepayer cost, by the ministry and Land Transport NZ.
Final stages still to be completed include construction of a new footbridge upstream of the doomed one-lane concrete bridge, paths to link to the new footbridge and an adventure ford across the Kerikeri River similar to one used in the early years of Mission Station occupation.
