Chairman’s report for Kumeu Community Action (KHRRA Inc)
Guy Wishart
At last year’s AGM, we had quite a change over of committee members. We were still wondering how long the Covid 19 tail of disruption would be. A year later, we are still not sure. Covid affected some members of our committee in a big way resulting in the need to stand down during the year.
Despite how uncertain the future was, the role of Kumeu Community action remained unchanged. We were grateful to have several capable new members join us and will be joined by more this year.
In the lead up to the 2020 NZ Elections we streamed a Facebook live candidates meeting moderated by Te Radar. ACT, The Greens, Labour, National, NZ First and Social Credit were represented by their candidates. The in-person meeting at St Chads had to be abandoned due to Covid 19 restrictions.
One of the points of interest that came out of this meeting was that Chris Penk (N) and Marja Lubeck (L) were able and willing to work together on finding solutions to our pressing local issues.
We organised a meeting with Phil Twyford (Transport and Housing Minister at the time) on 15 September 2020 at Soljans. This meeting was cancelled due to more pressing issues.
Peter and Olga were tracking the MOE’s site selection for a new high school in the area. Graeme and Guy met with the group working very hard to have changes made to Kumeu College Action group.
KHRRA changed it’s working name to Kumeu Community action as it sounds a bit more current. We also lowered our individual membership fees and made plans to update the website as some of its functions were no longer operational.
Regular monthly articles to the Kumeu Courier have been submitted and we are very thankful to Geoff Dobson for his support of the association.
We supported the application of the Kumeu Community Gardens to lease land in Oraha Rd. These gardens are now operational thanks to the group driving the project.
Peter has been working very hard with Auckland Council and the Environment Court in order to make submissions on Plan Change 20. The Countryside Living Zone has fairly weak protection against unsuitable developments and this needed to be challenged and the zoning rules strengthened.
Our public meeting at Huapai District School with Chris Penk, Marja Lubeck and Greg Sayers was attended by about 200 people.
Kumeu College
Traffic Congestion
The Bypass (Alternative Route)
Commuter trains to Huapai
Rural Internet
Sealing of roads and rates increases.
In the coming year, we will continue to seek positive action on the issues that are top of mind amongst the residents of Kumeu and Huapai. There is strength in numbers and as we continue to grow, so to shall our collective voices.
