RSA and museum seek Cenotaph upgrade

The Auckland City Council wants to replace the Cenotaph's concrete pavers with basalt pavers. Picture / Martin Sykes

The Auckland Returned Services Association wants a chain fence put around the Cenotaph outside the Auckland Museum to stop people using it as a picnic spot and desecrating the war memorial.

President Jim Newman said it was disturbing to see people lounging on the steps, eating, smoking and drinking on the consecrated ground.

The RSA would like a low chain fence about 3m to 5m back from the Cenotaph and the area repaved in basalt.

"We don't see it as an appropriate place to have lunch. [It should be] fenced off and treated as a consecrated area and people should be discouraged from going there unless they are going to pay homage to any ex-servicemen or servicemen," said Mr Newman.

Auckland Museum director Rodney Wilson would like to go further.

He wants the entire consecrated area in front of the museum repaved in natural stone.

The area, laid on a shoestring budget in concrete patterned pavers at the time the museum was built in the 1920s, was looking shabby, he said.

Dr Wilson said the museum made approaches to former Auckland City Mayor John Banks about upgrading the consecrated ground in time for last year's 90th anniversary of Anzac Day.

All that happened was some broken pavers and damaged steps were repaired and the Portland stone Cenotaph was cleaned.

The museum has renewed calls to upgrade the ground with Mayor Dick Hubbard and council officers, who have commissioned a report from Salmond Reed conservation architects.

The museum proposal involved sticking with the original design but substituting the seeded concrete with lightly-flecked Coromandel granite and leaden, almost black Auckland basalt at a cost of about $1 million.

Dr Wilson said local basalt would be preferable to Chinese basalt, but it might come down to a question of cost and durability.

That view was shared by Mr Newman.

"I would have thought New Zealand stone was more appropriate, but cost is always going to be a factor," Mr Newman said.

Speaking from Queenstown, Mr Hubbard said there had been some mention before Anzac Day last year about fencing off the Cenotaph but he was not sure what stage the matter had reached.