Hall sign saga seems to be over at last

Signing off … and on again. The latest incarnation is the third version, and a compromise.

More than a year after Auckland Council removed and replaced a much-loved local hall sign and notice board with a modern generic sign, residents have got their original version back.Whangateau’s wooden-framed, double-sided hall sign was originally designed and constructed to be in keeping with the historic village hall. However, when Rodney became part of the Super City, Auckland Council embarked on a programme of updating and unifying community hall signage throughout the region. Council wrote to the Whangateau Hall committee in September 2014 telling them it was going to replace the sign, which they immediately responded to by saying they didn’t want it changed.

“We never even got a reply to that,” hall committee member Elizabeth Foster says. “The next thing we knew it was replaced in January last year.”

Contractors took away the notice board, and the sign was replaced with a generic navy blue sign bearing the Auckland Council logo.

“We contacted them and said, ‘Oi, we want our sign back’. We had two site meetings, the first one in May and then another one sometime later with Council staff, and they absolutely refused to replace it.”

Further correspondence followed, then another site meeting in October, and a compromise was eventually reached.

“We didn’t hold our breath after that, but ultimately the contractor came back and put it up in early February,” Elizabeth says. “Basically we got what is in essence our sign back, though with that ghastly blue on the back, but the cost of all that – it’s crazy. If they just took some notice of what we said in the first place. It took quite a while and a lot of money, and all from destroying what was a perfectly good sign in the first place.”

Council’s community places project manager Terrena Griffiths says that after speaking to the community, it was realised that the original sign, which was the community notice board, had been removed.

“Council staff worked with the hall advisory group to replace the sign and reinstate the notice board,” she says. “Auckland Council recognises the importance of these notices for the community.”

There was a final twist in the tale last week, when the noticeboard was again suddenly removed without notice, only to be returned a day later with a brand new lock on it.