Roskill Community Voice

Campaigns

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Revive Roskill Town Centre

In July and August 2019 we ran a community discussion about the future of the Mt Roskill Town Centre (aka Mt Roskill shops, “Big Roskill”, corner Mt Albert and Dominion Rds) called Big Ideas for Mt Roskill Town Centre.

We had an overwhelming response with over 400 ideas suggested through postcards, email, online form, sessions with intermediate students, Facebook and at a well-attended public meeting hosted by local Member of Parliament Michael Wood.

We’ve now collated and analysed those ideas into our vision to Revive Roskill Town Centre – addressing the four themes of:

  1. Supporting a thriving area for local businesses
  2. Developing a place that attracts our vibrant and diverse community
  3. Securing the transport future of Dominion Road
  4. Creating a safe and flourishing Roskill Town Centre

Each area has specific ideas for actions we hope to take, with the community, like investigating the possibility of a food court (the most popular suggestion!), working with real estate agents on temporary opportunities like pop-up shops, and seeking certainty about the light rail project that will come to Roskill at some point.

Watch this space for progress and updates!  #ReviveRoskillTownCentre

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Wesley keeps its name

After a developer tried to use the Wesley name for a new residential suburb in Franklin in 2017, the local community campaigned to show what the name means to them and why it needed to stay central. We supported them with public meetings, coordinating the campaign, and working with the Mt Roskill Puketapapa Historical Society to promote an online petition, as well as door-knocking in the area for more signatures.

The developer withdrew their application for the name, and the Wesley community then applied, through local Member of Parliament Michael Wood, to make their name official. It was gazetted in November 2018 and officially approved in early 2019.

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Winning the 191 bus for Lynfield

Many years ago, when the old Auckland City was deciding about putting a new library at Lynfield or Blockhouse Bay, a bus route connecting Lynfield to the west was promised. After some advocacy it looked like this would finally be delivered as part of the New (Bus) Network Auckland Transport was rolling out, but they changed their minds and took it off the map again. We worked with Lynfield locals, and others keen to use such a service, and managed to win the new 191, which started in February 2019 as an hourly service.

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The Great Puketapapa Bus Survey 2018

The Great Puketapapa Bus Survey 2018

After the New (Bus) Network was rolled out in the central Auckland area by Auckland Transport, we were hearing a lot of concerns about how it was working. So we surveyed the local area and produced this report summarising the around 300 responses. It includes recommendations for Auckland Transport to consider, some of which are site-specific improvements and others are changes people would like to see to frequencies and so on.

On the whole people liked the increased frequencies, the simplicity of the network, and double decker buses. Concerns remained, after a few months of operation, about several changes in particular the loss of two express routes (267x and 258x) and the 299 link to Newmarket.

At the moment we are awaiting Auckland Transport’s response to the recommendations and report.

We’re also considering making the survey an annual campaign, so that we can see how things are improving (or not!)

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Safer Three Kings: No More Bottle Stores

In 2018 we helped the Three Kings community to stop a new off-licence alcohol store from opening in their neighbourhood, and we won!

The campaign included several public meetings, encouraging and gathering submissions opposing the new store for the liquor licence process, an online petition signed by over 300 locals with several hundred more paper signatures, and working with Michael Wood, MP for Mt Roskill, and the Puketapapa Local Board.

The application for a new off-licence (bottle store) at 509 Mt Albert Rd, Three Kings, was WITHDRAWN by the applicant,because of the large number of community objections – well done everyone for speaking up and making sure Super Liquor and the applying business owner knew Three Kings wasn’t ok with another bottle store in our community.

This is a huge win, thank you so much for your support!

Petition background
Alcohol Healthwatch estimates alcohol-related harm in New Zealand costs $14.5m each day. The brunt is disproportionately on youth, Maori and Pasifika in our communities, and there is a link between high density of off-licences and the heavier drinking patterns that result in much of the harm. Harm includes the health of the drinker themselves, such as increased rates of cancer and fetal alcohol syndrome, as well as harm to others, with alcohol playing a direct or indirect role in many fire fatalities, drownings, suicide and self-inflicted harm deaths, and the growing road toll.

43% of all alcohol is sold from off-licences, like the one proposed. This Super Liquor would be a large store, the size of the old bed shop, likely focused on selling bulk amounts of alcohol at low prices. It would increase the amount of alcohol in our community when we need to limit supply, and in particular reduce sales from off-licences where the liquor is then consumed in unsupervised circumstances (in contrast with on-licences).

Three Kings already has a large number of off-licences and problems with anti-social behaviour as a result of alcohol abuse.

There have been repeated incidents of violence and abuse in the carpark across the road from the proposed site, at 546 Mt Albert Rd, with alcohol playing a role. Several nearby shops, including existing bottle shops, have been violently robbed in particular the Liquor Legends on Duke St and the Crown Superette on Melrose Rd.

Local schools and parks end up vandalised and littered with broken glass, as people drink alcohol purchased at bottle shops in public despite liquor bans. Resources of both council and schools have to be used to clean up the mess, when some of it could be avoided by reducing the sale of alcohol in the area.

There are a number of local sites of cultural importance where anti-social behaviour fueled by alcohol would be inappropriate, including places of worship such as the almost adjacent Three Kings Congregational Church, and Ranfurly Retirement Village which is a war memorial to the Boer War and thus a place of remembrance as well as home to some of our more vulnerable older people.

Finally, the District Licensing Committee process allows people to make submissions to object to the application, and this petition is an important opportunity for those who can’t make a submission to still be able to show their opposition. It is possible there will also be a hearing on this application, particularly if the petition is signed by a lot of locals, which will provide another opportunity for the local community to have a say.