Sign In / Register
The former State Highway 1 between Warkworth and Puhoi is to be given a new name – Pōhuehue Road.
The name was the preferred choice of Auckland Transport (AT), which will formally take over the 16.5km stretch between Billing and McKinney Roads from NZTA Waka Kotahi on July 1.
There were two other options on the table for consideration by Rodney Local Board members at their meeting on May 15 – Schedewy Road, after the hill and suggested by the Puhoi Heritage Museum, and Hikauae Road, the pre-European name for Schedewy’s Hill, gifted by the Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust.
AT road corridor team leader Len van der Harst said Ngāti Manuhiri had originally gifted its own name, wanting to call the road the Ngāti Manuhiri Highway, but he said former state highways could no longer be called ‘highway’.
“As soon as they heard that we had dropped the name highway, they wanted to withdraw the name.
They didn’t want to have it called Ngāti Manuhiri Road, so they withdrew it,” he said.
“That’s when we consulted and got the name Pōhuehue, and they were totally supportive of that and have endorsed it.”
Geoff Upson pointed out that several former sate highways had kept that name, such as Hibiscus Coast Highway, Dairy Flat Highway and Albany Highway, and suggested the old SH1 should be Pōhuehue Highway.
Van der Harst said the naming rules had since been changed to avoid confusion between state highways, which are the responsibility of NZTA, and all other roads (AT).
“You’re absolutely correct, but NZTA has changed its directive since then and it’s not something AT has the ability to control. This is a local road and can’t be called a highway,” he said.
Michelle Carmichael wanted to call it Mahurangi Highway, or Road, as it connected Mahurangi East and Mahurangi West.
However, van der Harst said that suggestion had been rejected by Land Information NZ, which has to approve new road names, as there were already several roads using the Mahurangi name, including the new O Mahurangi Penlink highway.
Colin Smith brought up the surfeit of names for the former state highway once it got into Warkworth itself, saying it was confusing for everybody – from McKinney Road to Whitaker Road, it’s called Auckland Road; from Whitaker Road to Hill Street, it’s Brown Road, and from Hill Street north to SH1, it’s Great North Road (or Twin Coast Discovery Highway, according to Google Maps).
Smith thought it should all be Great North Road.
Members voted to approve the name Pōhuehue Road for the stretch south of Warkworth, with Upson voting against.
What’s in a name?
Pōhuehue was the father of Ngati Manuhiri leader Tenetahi Te Riringa. It is the name of the area north of Moir Hill Road that the old SH1 runs through, passing over the Pōhuehue viaduct and past the Pōhuehue reserve, stream falls and bushwalk. Pōhuehue is also the name of a native climber that was valued by Māori for its tenacity.
