Wellington's most famous fish and chip shop is finally going.
Wellington Fish Supplies, opposite Parliament, will be demolished this year and turned into the Molesworth St entrance for a new apartment block.
Plans for the block were announced in 1999 but then put on hold. However, the developers have relaunched the project
with a starting date of July.
The crazy-angled, corrugated-iron-sided shop achieved fame as the headquarters of the "fish and chip brigade", Labour plotters Roger Douglas, Mike Moore, Michael Bassett and David Lange, who brought down leader Bill Rowling in 1983.
Then Labour MP and now Act leader Richard Prebble said that while he would miss the shop, its loss probably would have less impact than it once would have.
"They [Labour Party] are all vegetarians, aren't they?"
That aside, Mr Prebble said a bit of Wellington's heritage was going.
"Closing that fish and chip shop is definitely a blow."
The apartment development was not the first threat to the shop. It was earmarked for demolition in the 1980s for a proposed courts development, but former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer stepped in.
"I insisted that the fish and chip shop be saved," he said on Friday. "It seemed to me that it added a human face [to the area]."
The business has been run for the past year by Peter Krasoudakis, who ironically ran Thorndon Fisheries on Molesworth St before it was demolished some years ago to make way for the High Court. He leases it month by month.
"If we have to go, it's a little bit sad but there's nothing we can do about it."
- NZPA
