Mid-afternoon on Monday, 28th August, 2006 - petitions signed by more than 700 people supporting the retention of the Tawa Community Board are being handed over by Tawa Community Board member Malcolm Sparrow (at right) to Ross Bly, Special Projects & Electoral Officer for the Wellington City Council. At that stage the City Council had received between 500-600 individual submissions as well, final number supporting the Community Board yet to be determined.


The Tawa Community Board's submission is available here [MS Word 640KB]
or here without photos [MS Word 144KB]


Malcolm Sparrow's own submission (for what it's worth) can be seen here:

Some think it is an 'anomaly' that Tawa is the only suburb in the city of Wellington to have its own community board, therefore 'in the interests of fairness' the board should go. I would suggest that Tawa itself is an 'anomaly', therefore 'in the interests of fairness' the board should stay.

How is Tawa an 'anomaly', an irregularity?

1. For a start, no other sizeable community in Wellington is as geographically distinct as Tawa (with its clearcut boundaries which do not merge with any other suburb), and as geographically remote from the rest of the city.

2. No other community has the unique history of Tawa, which is the reason the community board was established in the first place. The City Council's website states: 'The community board reflects the unique history and requirements of the area, and helps Wellington City Council to understand and meet the community's needs.'

Every other suburb within Wellington has been part of the city for at least a half-century or, for most of the city, part of an amalgamated Wellington since the 1930s. Tawa prospered as an independent, well-run borough until the late 1980s. At that stage it lost its independence, and a community board was set up instead. Nothing has changed in that regard. Is there any reason why the City Council should no longer '... understand and meet the community's needs'?

3. No other community in Wellington regards itself as 'separate' from Wellington to the degree that Tawa does, not just geographically but in its mindset. Tawa is effectively still its own town with its own distinctive community of people whose schools, churches, and community groups work together remarkably well.

4. No other community has the same reasons to feel that it could become 'the forgotten suburb' if it does not have a community board to voice its interests on Council. There is already the suspicion that the City Council does not always see Tawa as part of Wellington. With Tawa having progressively lost its borough status, its own ward and, in more recent days, its Service Centre, the loss of its community board would seem to be the last link in isolating Tawa from the rest of Wellington.

In the interests of fairness to the Tawa community, the community board should be retained and I therefore urge you to do the right thing and leave it in place.


Click here for photos of signs erected on the Main Road by the Community Board.

Pics from earlier weeks