Tauranga City Councillor Murray Guy has achieved his target of building a footpath up to the historic Mission Cemetery for $17,000.
The pouring of the concrete path began on the same day as the blessing of a new memorial seat with panoramic views across to the Kaimai Range.
The seat, outside the
entrance to the cemetery, was paid for by the cemetery's unofficial guardian, Bob Smith, with last Friday's blessing coinciding with the fourth anniversary of the death of his wife, Catherine.
Reverend Erice Fairbrother, the vicar of St John's Anglican Church, was assisted in the blessing by Reverend Joe Leota.
Cr Guy told the Bay of Plenty Times afterwards that he was delighted the path had come in at budget and that he had nearly succeeded with his aim of finishing the path in time for the unveiling of the memorial seat.
The path from Dive Crescent was his response to a council report that estimated it would cost $75,000 to build a more complex wheelchair-friendly ramp up to the cemetery.
He launched a personal crusade to fast-track construction of a much cheaper alternative - the cemetery already had wheelchair access from Marsh St.
However, he ran into flak when he borrowed a small digger to do some basic contouring of the track. Tauranga's Judea-based Maori hapu, Ngaitamarawaho, complained that Cr Guy had breached its consultation protocols with the council.
Des Tata, a historian and leading authority of the hapu, said no one else would get away with flaunting iwi protocols triggered when earthworks took place so close to a cultural site - in this case a significant urupa (burial) and former pa site.
The owner of most of the land along the route of the path, the New Zealand Transport Agency, said the extent of the contouring by Cr Guy had not been what they expected.
The Historic Places Trust said they would have preferred that Cr Guy had checked it out with them first, although an inspection showed that he had not damaged an archaeological site.
