Vernon Woods, manager of the Anzac Theatre in Dargaville, is disappointed the theatre has been forced to close at short notice with no plans in place from the Kaipara District Council to provide a new venue.
Vernon Woods, manager of the Anzac Theatre in Dargaville, is disappointed the theatre has been forced to close at short notice with no plans in place from the Kaipara District Council to provide a new venue.
The people behind Dargaville’s popular Anzac Theatre are disappointed and angry that they have had to close down at short notice, with no plan in place for them to move, after the Kaipara District Council closed the building they are in due to an unsafe extension.
The council announced onFriday, April 21, that the Dargaville Town Hall would close from the following Monday, April 24, in the interest of public safety, following further damage sustained during Cyclone Gabrielle, with a partial demolition needed.
Council chief executive Jason Marris made the call after two independent reports highlighted the poor state of parts of the building, which are damp and have mould. A building surveyor found the entrance, kitchen and hall had suffered a weather-tightness failure, causing damage to the interior linings, windows and electrics. They highlighted multiple significant risks with the building. A second report, on the air quality, found very high levels of fungal spores in parts of the complex, which poses a risk to public health.
The part of the Dargaville Town Hall being knocked down is the cream-sprayed concrete section at the front that was built in the late 1990s. It includes the foyer, kitchen, toilets and the passage between the municipal chambers and the Northern Wairoa War Memorial Hall.
But the quick notice of closure has left the Anzac Theatre in limbo, with nowhere to go and no plan in place from the council to help. Trustees and supporters of the theatre made a presentation to the council’s Wednesday meeting last week to highlight their concerns and seek help for a way forward.
A council spokesperson said: ‘’We have met with the Dargaville Community Cinema Charitable Trust several times over the last couple of weeks to inform them of the building closure and to understand what their plans are. We look forward to sitting down and discussing their plans for reopening and how we can support them.’’
Trustee and former Kaipara mayor Graeme Ramsey said the council gave the group, and more than 30 supporters who turned up, a fair hearing and he was awaiting news on what the council could do next to help the theatre move and continue operating.
The people behind Dargaville’s popular Anzac Theatre are up in arms at the short notice given to close down after the Kaipara District Council made the decision to demolish the front part of the building where their foyer is, due to safety issues.
The Anzac Theatre started about 14 years ago in a kūmara shed in Dargaville, and moved into the old town hall building about a decade ago. Since then, it had grown from strength to strength and now attracted people from all over the Kaipara and even movie buffs from Whangārei and further afield, cinema manager Vern Woods said.
Woods said the theatre trustees had been talking to the council over recent years and months about the state of the foyer building and had ben complaining about the deteriorating state of the foyer area. He said mould was a constant factor and at times there had been mushrooms growing on the carpet.
Ramsey said the trustees and supporters were a passionate bunch and the theatre added to the town’s social and cultural needs, and not having a place to go to was upsetting. He said the theatre had received support from around Northland for its current plight.
They wanted the council to give a commitment to help the theatre find a new venue and to help with some of the moving costs, or do work to enable the theatre to remain open at the site.
“We need full access to the area between the old municipal building, the Northern Wairoa War Memorial Hall and Pono Lodge. We need council to work with us to provide an emergency exit. Without that exit we just can’t reopen. There are some possible solutions but we’ll need others to work with us on getting that sorted,” Woods said.
They also want a commitment from the council to fast-track consent processes and a commitment to rehouse its aircon unit, which is sitting on top of the roof that’s about to be demolished. They also need lots of clarity around other, real, concrete actions that could help, such as could they use shipping containers around the building?
