Whanganui Chronicle Person of the Year runner-up: Jamie Waugh

Jamie Waugh held the Castlcliff Rejuvenation Project's first public meeting in 2013. Photo / Mike Tweed

Today we continue our Whanganui Chronicle Person of the Year 2022 series.

Earlier in the month we put out the call to our readers for nominations. This week we are profiling our runners-up with the winner revealed in Saturday’s Chronicle.

Our next runner-up has played a key role in rejuvenating Castlecliff and now is working on Te Pūwaha.

Outside his job as a lawyer, Jamie Waugh dedicates a large chunk of his time to community projects, in Castlecliff particularly.

He is the facilitator of the Castlecliff Rejuvenation Project, a group he founded not long after moving from Wellington, and which had its first public meeting in 2013.

“I actually got involved in Castlecliff really soon after moving, because the council was going to knock over the Duncan Pavilion,” Waugh said.

The project comes under the umbrella of Progress Castlecliff, which he also belongs to.

“This wasn’t just me. Jenny Duncan and Graeme Dyhrberg [employed by Downers at the time] played a big part as well. More and more people got involved, like Ellen [Young] and Charlotte [Melser] and Jack [Mitchell-Anyon]. That has been really cool.”

Waugh said there was never a list of things he wanted to achieve with the group, it just came down to something needing to be done.

“I guess I stopped waiting for someone else and just did it myself. It was about trying to make things a little bit better.

“A decade ago, there hadn’t been a cent spent in Castlecliff by central or local government bodies for 30 years. It was in a state of decline and it was the lowest socio-economic suburb in the country. Now, people are proud to live there.”

The upgrade of Rangiora St was one example of what could be achieved.

“There’s the process of talking to the community and turning that into artist impressions, and you go there now it’s like ‘Wow, this is just like those impressions’,” Waugh said.

“I get a lot of satisfaction by seeing what can be done and how it happens.

“It’s just momentum and belief and enjoying the challenge of the whole thing. I’ve got 80 years, right? There’s stuff you can do that makes other people happy and makes their life better.

“It turns out it makes my life better as well.”

Waugh has been heavily involved with Te Pūwaha - the Whanganui Port redevelopment project.

“Nga Ringaringa Waewae is what I’m called now, which is the hands and feet of hapū and community.

“My main guides in the project have been Te Mata Puau, which is the hapū collective at the core of the whole thing. I’m directed by them to achieve their aspirations and the aspirations of the community.

“At the moment that involves delivering the physical aspirations at the North Mole but also assisting to operationalise the legislation and the kawa [Māori protocol and etiquette].

“That goes from getting it into schools to getting the council’s heads around it properly. It’s a big, long process.”

Waugh said he had come a long way from “being an illiterate baby in the whole Te Awa Tupua and Te Pūwaha realm” two years ago.

“I don’t think I’ve started properly giving back to that.

“I’m fairly obsessional about it at the moment and have been for a couple of years now. I don’t think there’s anything globally that even comes close to its potential. It’s the first place where indigenous values have been incorporated into Western-style legislation.”

He said he felt privileged to be an “adopted son” of Whanganui and to be part of the local community.