Campbells Bay School parent Guy Davies with his children Georgia, 7, Zak, 9, and Maxwell, 11, is fighting to save the school's historic 69-year-old pōhutukawa. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Campbells Bay School parent Guy Davies with his children Georgia, 7, Zak, 9, and Maxwell, 11, is fighting to save the school's historic 69-year-old pōhutukawa. Photo / Brett Phibbs
A North Shore school whose emblem is a pōhutukawa plans to chop down the seven pōhutukawa trees that inspired its symbol.
The Ministry of Education says the seven trees at Campbells Bay School need to come down to make way for a new 14-classroom block because the school roll hasballooned by 50 per cent in 10 years to become the country's second-biggest primary school.
A new classroom block at Campbells Bay School would require removal of the school's historic pōhutukawa. Image / Supplied
But more than 1600 people have signed a petition to save the 69-year-old trees, which are part of an ecological corridor for native birds migrating between Auckland's east coast islands and west coast Waitākere Ranges.
A petition organiser Guy Davies, who has three children at the school, said the children identified with the pōhutukawa because it was the symbol on their uniforms.
A stylised pōhutukawa is Campbells Bay School's logo. Photo / Brett Phibbs
"The children are going to school every day with a pōhutukawa on their chest, by their heart. There is a really emotional meaning there, the kids identify with it," he said.
The school roll has grown from 654 in 2010 to 982 in July this year, and 11 classes are now learning in prefabricated classrooms on a corner of the school's playing field.
The proposed new two-storey 14-classroom block would allow the prefabs to be taken off the playing field, and would preserve a 2ha "community forest" which has been planted by community groups over the past 25 years in the southeast corner of the school site.
But the new building on an existing netball court on the school's Aberdeen Rd frontage would require removing seven pōhutukawa and a Norfolk pine.
School board chair Jen Hanton said the board considered other sites, redesigning the building and not building at all, but there were "no feasible options".
The board of trustees says there were "no feasible options" except to remove eight trees to make way for the new classroom block (above). Image / Supplied
"We know the trees along Aberdeen Rd hold a special place in our hearts and our community," she said.
"We have looked at every possible option to keep them, but sadly the only way to meet the learning requirements of our students is to create a permanent, fit-for-purpose space, and to do that the trees must be removed."
An alternative option might have been to rebuild upwards on the site of the existing permanent classrooms, but new North Shore MP Simon Watts said the cost would have been "prohibitive".
"There were a couple of options, but the fiscal impact of that was prohibitive, and I guess in this fiscal environment there are tradeoffs," he said.
Former North Shore mayor George Wood, who is now on the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board, said there was no site available for a new school in the area to take pressure off Campbells Bay School.
"This is just a symptom of intensification in urban areas," he said. "I support the intensification, and I believe that other people do too."
Guy Davies with his children Georgia, 7, Zak, 9, and Maxwell, 11: the community would fund-raise to pay for another option to save the trees. Photo / Brett Phibbs
But Davies said the decile-10 school's parents would be willing to raise money to fund a more expensive option that would save the pōhutukawa.
Although the new classroom block has been discussed for two years, he said the need to chop down the pōhutukawa had come "out of left field" in the past fortnight without any consultation.
"The Climate Change Emergency plan has just been announced by the Government and there is an expectation for local government departments to show leadership in this area," he said.
Over 1,000 people have signed our petition! Thanks for your support. Here’s the link, please share:
https://www.change.org/SaveCBSTrees
Dr Richard Hursthouse, who chairs the nearby Centennial Park Bush Society, said Campbells Bay was the most forested part of East Coast Bays, making it "a very important stepping stone" for birds flying across Auckland's east-west "wild link".
He pointed to recent data showing that the Hibiscus and Bays area has lost 125ha or 5 per cent of its trees since 2013 after the former National Government removed blanket tree protection on private land from the Resource Management Act in 2012.
Net changes in tree cover between 2013 and 2016/18. Image / Supplied
"We need to consider this as one of many - it's one of a number of mature native trees that are being destroyed in the name of progress," Hursthouse said.
Project Crimson volunteers, like these photographed at Te Puke in 1994, have helped to plant pōhutukawa at Campbells Bay School over the past 25 years. Photo / File
Former Race Relations Commissioner Joris De Bres, who now chairs Project Crimson which has helped to plant new pōhutukawa in the school's community forest, said every mature pōhutukawa was "irreplaceable in a sense of within the better part of a century, or at least half a century".
"We are at a time when every effort has to be made to avoid the destruction of native trees," he said.
The head of the Ministry of Education's infrastructure service head Kim Shannon said ministry officials would meet the school and concerned parents at 8am today
.
"We understand this is upsetting for the local community," she said.
"When it became clear that any building would affect the trees, we sought expert advice from arborists.
"Unfortunately, they did not believe the trees would survive being transplanted elsewhere and removing much of the canopy and rootballs to retain them was also not an option they recommended. As a result, we made the decision that removing the trees was the right option.
"Once the new classrooms are in place, 12 semi-mature native trees will be planted around the new building to return canopy cover as soon as possible."
