Community support flows in for stream

Peter Harrington (left), Taparoto Nicholson, Craig Morley, Bella Tait, Hariata Tapiata and Kim McGrouther at Puarenga Stream.

More than 50 members of the public have voiced their opinions on ways to restore the Puarenga Stream.

A hui was held on Thursday night and co-organiser Craig Morley said he was pleased with the turn-out.

"It went really well, we had a really good turn-out and a very good cross-section in the community present so it was really, really good."

He said there would now be a meeting with the regional council and another hui in April.

"Now we are going to go through all the feedback and all the comments that were made and work on a path forward."

He said it would be easier to move forward when the community was on the same page.

"It was good to have a collection of people together from a diverse range of backgrounds, from the research side, education and local government.

"There was lots of talk about improving the area, both the water quality and the recreational facilities in the area.

"People were also talking about historical context - there a lot of things that have been done, we look into that and work with people.

"And it was good to have a meeting with both Maori and Pakeha present, apparently that had never happened before."

People were supportive of restoring the stream, he said.

"Recurring themes were they felt something needed to be done. We are meeting next Friday to work out what direction we will take and we will feed that back to the community in April.

"There is a lot of excitement and opportunities out there and we just want to build on that momentum and get the community involved ... there were a lot of people saying I want to restore pride back into that area again."