Name change suggestion meeting road block

Name change advocate: Dannevirke's Nick Hill has been presenting his case for a name change from Tararua to Seventy Mile Bush throughout the district.

Seventy Mile Bush may be a good concept, but we should stick to Tararua as our district name.

"You've got to stick with Tararua, even though I love the Seventy Mile Bush concept," Brian Read of Waipukurau said.

Mr Read worked in northern forests in the 1940s, but said "you can't go back."

"You have put a lot of effort into marketing your district as Tararua and it works," he said.

Dannevirke historian Nick Hill has been floating the idea of a name change for our district at meetings and he believes the name Seventy Mile Bush would be a remedy to the problem of our identity.

But with low turnouts at meetings, Mr Hill conceded there wasn't an appetite for change in Eketahuna and Pahiatua, and Eketahuna resident David Shannon agrees.

"A name change would be stupid," he said.

"I went to the Pahiatua meeting and there were just two of us there. We told Nick a name change was a lot of bloody rubbish. Unfortunately, Nick is only wasting his time doing this."

But Mr Hill said he believed having a strong identity as Seventy Mile Bush could help stave off any attempts at amalgamation with neighbouring regions.

"As an issue [amalgamation], it will rise again inevitably," he told those who attended his Dannevirke meeting.

"My suggestion is to put Seventy Mile Bush on the map and put our stake in the ground and stay a strong, staunch district."