Community board bids to keep Howick name

A move to make Howick the name of two new local body units of the Super City was unveiled yesterday.

Howick Community Board resolved to urge the Local Government Commission and the Government to reconsider the name of Te Irirangi for its ward and local board.

The new ward of Auckland Council will cover about 128,000 people.

A Howick representative on Manukau City Council, Jami-Lee Ross, said the name Te Irirangi did not represent the area and the present Howick-Pakuranga-Botany Ward was too long-winded.

"We need a name that's easy to identify with and Howick is as the oldest and central settlement. Both Pakuranga and Botany are encapsulated in parliamentary electorates."

Mr Ross said Howick was a likely site for the local board service centre and it had council offices there.

Many people were still disappointed by the forced merger of Howick Borough and Manukau City Council in the 1989 reforms and bringing back the name was seen as an opportunity to re-establish the local area's identity.

Many Botany and Pakuranga residents identified as "Howickians."

A joint meeting of three eastern Manukau City community boards will debate the Howick proposal at a public meeting at Howick College Theatre, at 7.30 pm on Friday.

Naming wards is the job of the Local Government Commission.

Commission spokesman Donald Riezebos said ward and local board names had been determined and would not be changed between now and November 1. However, local body names could be reviewed perhaps, three or six years down the track.

Manukau City Council will disappear from the local body area map on November 1 but the historic name Manukau lives on as a ward. This has raised the question of whether Manukau City Centre will change.

City council director of community, Ian Maxwell, said the name was so much in general use and the location so familiar that it would remain in common use.

Since the council chose the former Wiri farmland for the city centre, it had gained Manukau's courthouse, post office, shopping centre, council offices and soon would have a railway station and Manukau Library and Research Centre.

In 2000, Westfield renamed its shopping centre Westfield Manukau City.

Using the location was part of the company's naming protocol and it had no immediate plans to change, said spokeswoman Debra McGhie.

Geographic Board secretary Wendy Shaw said Manukau City was an official name stated in the NZ Gazette 1966.

Howick

* Howick is to have the name Te Irirangi for its ward and local board under the new Super City.

* The new ward will cover about 128,000 people.

* Residents are proposing to make Howick the name of the two new local body units.

* There will be a public meeting at Howick College Theatre, at 7.30 pm on Friday.