New contractor to mind historic grounds

Wanganui sculptor Joan Morrell's Protection in Adversity now sits in a bed of weeds. Photo/Bevan Conley

Pakaitore/Moutoa Gardens has a new grounds contractor that will work to the Pakaitore Historic Reserve Board brief when they take up the contract in February.

Yesterday, board chairman, deputy-Mayor Hamish McDouall, said the quality of the maintenance work on the gardens in the past nine months had not been what the board desired.

"The key thing: as a space it is historic, as are all the monuments.

"We tolerated the job the current contractor was doing; it came up at every meeting."

Having had enough, the board put out the tender for a new contractor in November.

Arborists had been working on each of the trees in the gardens, he said.

Mr McDouall said the biggest piece of work - the marble statue of World War 1 soldier Company Sergeant Major Herewini Whakarua of Nga Rauru - was in progress.

The statue was lifted off the shellrock plinth last year and placed in storage in the Sarjeant Gallery. The plinth is being restored in situ and will be ready for the centennial celebrations in 2015 of the landing at Gallipoli.

The "chain", which is fragile and been damaged in places and overgrown with vegetation, was the next priority monument for restoration, Mr McDouall said.

The Chronicle visited the gardens yesterday and found the "no smoking sign" was smashed in half; elm suckers were growing in the flower beds, as were thistles and dandelion; the asphalt path was cracked with vegetation growing through; an oak tree branch was growing over the footpath at pedestrian level, and the Joan Morrell statue Protection in Adversity was sitting in a bed of weeds.

Mr McDouall said it was disappointing that the sign had been vandalised.

The board will meet again in the coming weeks.