Outcry forces council backdown on pavers

Many of the bluestone pavers laid in High St five years ago are cracked. Picture / Richard Robinson

The Auckland City Council has relented and agreed to consider retaining the red-pebble pavers of Vulcan Lane after public outrage over a $1.2 million makeover.
The council has dropped plans to pave the stylish, albeit slightly grungy, pedestrian strip in bluestone, and has done away with a circle of five nectar feeders to attract tui.

Instead, new options will be presented to businesses and building owners at workshops today and Wednesday. Among the options will be keeping Vulcan Lane as it is but with improved drainage and laying replica red pavers in about eight asphalt patches.

Other options include ripping up the 40-year-old pavers and replacing them with close replicas and laying granite pavers with various degrees of etching and roughness.

Mayor Dick Hubbard yesterday said there was "going to be a lot of listening" to the views of businesses and building owners.

He said the council had got the message "loud and clear" that the public did not want bluestone and tui feeders.

The backdown followed protests from some of the country's biggest fashion names that the consultation on Vulcan Lane ignored their pleas against the agenda of council officers for a "bland, homogenous" bluestone look for the central business district.

The fashion leaders, with overwhelming public support, said ripping up the red pavers would destroy the character and spirit of the lane.

Zambesi owner Neville Findlay said he wanted to keep the red pavers, laid when Vulcan Lane was converted into a pedestrian mall in 1968, and a batch of identical pavers made to fill in the patches and for future repairs.

"Vulcan Lane should be treated the way you treat a painting. You restore it faithfully. You don't go painting a whole lot of bright new colours on a painting. You restore it with a degree of the ageing that is there," he said.

Mr Findlay believed Mr Hubbard was "moving in the right direction" but was wary of the "lucid tones" of council staff.

A small number of the 2160 or so pavers in Vulcan Lane are chipped or worn but an inspection yesterday found only one cracked paver.

In High St, where bluestone paving was laid five years ago, about 80 pavers were damaged, many of them cracked.

The man who made the Vulcan Lane pavers 40 years ago, Ross Scarborough, said they were made of reinforced concrete and underwent stringent load testings for up to a fortnight dealing with beer tankers and trucks.

"That's the secret to them and why they lasted so long."