U-turn 'for greater good'

Mike Lee now wants to keep the sheds. Photo / Steven McNicholl

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee has had a change of heart towards the two 98-year-old cargo sheds on Queens Wharf.

Until recently, Mr Lee - who takes the regional council's statutory role to protect Auckland's heritage seriously - insisted that the two sheds were "cheap and nasty when they were built and now they are old and cheap and nasty".

Yesterday, Mr Lee admitted to changing his mind after discussions with the Historic Places Trust and friends who are heritage advocates.

He said that he now recognised "genuine heritage values in the sheds".

"It is one thing to have an opinion. It is another thing to completely destroy something," said Mr Lee, adding that he did not mind losing a bit of face for the greater good of Auckland.

The mea culpa, however, has not impressed the Rugby World Cup Minister, Murray McCully, who said: "It is frustrating that the sheds that the ARC regarded as 'old and cheap and nasty' are now the subject of last-ditch attempts to change course."