West Auckland woman throws birthday party for 'cracked, hazardous footpath'

Fed up with seeing her requests ignored, Nova Gibson adopted a more positive approach. Photo / Facebook

A fed up west Auckland resident has thrown a birthday party for the "cracked, hazardous footpath" near her house in the hopes it'll get the council's attention.

Nova Gibson says she's tried many times to get Auckland Council to fix the damaged footpath on a busy section of Lincoln Rd, Henderson, to no avail.

A frustrated Gibson decided to find a more positive way to mark how long the footpath has been damaged for.

On July 10, at 10am, the Henderson resident threw a six-month birthday party for the cracked footpath.

The day before, she bought six cupcakes, six candles and six balloons from her local supermarket, to mark the six months of the damage. She posted to Facebook inviting people to join her "to celebrate/commiserate".

Party tomorrow 10am outside 15 Lincoln Rd Henderson to celebrate/commiserate the minimum 6 month anniversary of the...

Posted by Nova Gibson on Monday, 8 July 2019

"Party tomorrow 10am outside 15 Lincoln Rd Henderson to celebrate/commiserate the minimum 6 month anniversary of the cracked and hazardous footpath. Snap Send Solve seems to be a fail on this one even four notifications later," she wrote.

"The Auckland City Council has possibly spent the footpath bond on lunch."

6 cupcakes, 6 candles, 6 balloons and 6 months+ for the Auckland Council to fix this footpath! If this doesn’t work, I may have to resort to other tactics.

Posted by Nova Gibson on Tuesday, 9 July 2019

Gibson said the stool and the balloons were still there a day later, "with no sign of workmen fixing the footpath".

She said the damaged footpath was outside a new development on number 13 Lincoln Rd.

"Not shown in the photo but nearby is a broken cover plate with sharp edges sticking up," she said.

"There is also huge damage to the footpath just around the corner at the top of Sel Peacock Rd. I suspect it was the trucks etc from the new build on that property but I would have thought that the crossing bond required by the council with every building permit would have covered the cost of repair."

Gibson lives a couple of kilometres down the road and says that, both as a pedestrian and a cyclist, uses footpaths more than she uses her car.

"We have a lot of elderly in this community and they are more vulnerable to injury. I have used the Snap Send Solve app many times over the last year and used the online form on the council website but there's been no action yet. So I figured if a party worked in England I'd try it here," she added.

Contacted by the Herald, Auckland Transport (AT) said the damage was the result of construction works on a residential subdivision and that those have not been repaired by the owners.

"Temporary repairs will be carried out by Auckland Transport contractors to remove any trip hazards," a spokesperson said.

"AT will continue to chase up the property owner to complete the vehicle crossing and footpath repairs."