A local councillor took the ultimate tester to the official opening of a new $850,000 playground in her area.
Manurewa-Papakura Councillor Angela Dalton took her moko Willow to check out Kai-paawhara at Kirikiri Reserve in Papakura last week as the playground was handed over to the community.
Also on hand were local resident Dr Anneke Rene and her sons Leonidas and Lysander.
Leonidas was part of the initial deputation that presented to the Papakura Local Board about the need for a playground in the expanding suburb.
“It has been a long time since our first petition in 2018 so I’m so thrilled for the community that we now have a safe and fun place to gather and connect,” Rene says. “A connected community is a safe community”
Board chair Brent Catchpole remembers that day well. “It was one the very best presentations we have had, because the children were the ones telling us about what they wanted, and how important it was to them to have a local play space.
“It’s taken a wee while to make it happen, but it was really fitting to have the Rene family along to see what the conversation they started ended up achieving.”
I'll just belt out a quick tune Nan...Willow hits the right note for her grandmother, Manurewa-Papakura Councillor Angela Dalton.
And Willow gave the playground the big thumbs-up too. “It’s a brilliant space and one I am sure the local community will really enjoy,” Cr Dalton says.
“We all watch the city growing, houses appearing on hills and in paddocks where we may have played ourselves as young ones, but the play spaces we need aren’t quite as quick to appear.
“Few things turn a residential area into a community the way play spaces do. They become social hubs and places where neighbours get to know each other, and their children.”
Fellow Councillor Daniel Newman, who grew up in nearby Duckworth Road when the rest of the area was just an undeveloped series of paddocks and hills, says Anneka and other Keri Vista Rise residents have been outstanding advocates for a growing community.
“Hundreds of residents were canvassed before Anneka appeared before the board in 2018. While the project has taken a while, I know it has been informed by a comprehensive community engagement with Keri Vista residents who have significantly contributed to the design of this wonderful new community asset.”
The call from the community for a park hit the papers back in 2018.
Kai-paawhara / Kirikiri Reserve was acquired by council to provide a neighbourhood park for a new community. It is almost 2000 square metres and is surrounded by residential housing, making it ideal for easy walking access for residents.
The name was gifted by mana whenua Te Ākitai Waiohua and adopted as part of the council’s Te Kete Rukurukuru naming programme.
It means dried food – in this instance a reference to fish, which were caught in the area’s streams and creeks, gutted and laid out to dry in the area as a way of preserving food resources. It also refers to nearby Kaipara Road, which is a shortening of kai-paawhara.
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