Photos show tourist attraction Waiwera Thermal Resort falling into disrepair

Waiwera Thermal Springs, once a popular tourist spot, is now a half-completed construction site. Photograph / Derelict NZ (Facebook)

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The once-popular Waiwera Thermal Resort hot pools have been left in a decrepit state after the tourist attraction's abrupt closure.

Waiwera Thermal Springs was shut a year ago for renovations, but there has been no work done on the site since September. Now new photos have revealed the parlous state of the property.

Photographs posted on the Facebook page Derelict NZ show drained or murky pools, piles of dirt littering the site, and overgrown gardens.

Renovation work has been paused, and some buildings are missing roofs or have been left half-finished. The person who posted the photos said all of the waterslides had been dismantled except one.

The resort, which also includes a water bottling plant, was leased to Russian billionaire Mikhail Khimich.

The Waiwera pools have been closed since February for renovations, but there has been no work at the site since September.

The landowners cancelled the lease in October because of unpaid bills dating back two years.

Khimich's company purchased the leasehold interest in the property in 2010.

WPL project director Evan Vertue has said he did not welcome the move but the company was left with no other option but to cancel the lease.

"We have reluctantly re-entered the premises due to continual tenant default and consider this option a last resort."

The pools were a popular tourist attraction before they closed.

Vertue said the defaults dated back as far as two years, and it remained unclear as to why the bills had not been paid.

The businesses on the site were closed earlier this year for refurbishments, but Vertue said there had been no activity on the site since early September.

He said the thermal resort had been closed to the public since February 2018.

Locals have called the resort "a bloody mess" because of its partially completed state and say the ongoing closure is not helping businesses in the small waterfront town north of Auckland.

It has also been reported that water bores in the township have been overflowing since the hot pools shut down.

The pools once pulled up to 350,000 visitors a year.

Late last year, an Australian company expressed an interest in taking up the lease and re-opening the pools.

First set up in 1848, Waiwera was New Zealand's first tourist spa. It was fully commercialised in 1875 and at its peak had 350,000 visitors a year.

All of the waterslides have been dismantled except one, the photographer said.