STILL "NO DECISION" ON RETURN OF THE PANMURE SIGN

Keith from Panmure

From The Panmure Community Action Group:

Two years after the removal of the historic Panmure sign from the old Panmure roundabout, the Maungakiekie-Tamaki Local Board says there has been no decision on its return. This has been the position of the Board and Auckland Transport since the decision was made to remove the sign more than five years ago.
When the sign was taken down in April 2019 to make way for the AMETI Eastern Busway, Auckland Transport tweeted: “Over the weekend, we said Ka kite anō to the Panmure sign which was carefully removed & placed in storage. The sign will return, refreshed at a new location later on”. However, since then, AT appear to have lined up a list of excuses for not bringing the sign back at all. It currently languishes in a Council depot in Meadowbank.

The reinstated Panmure sign was clearly on the original draft plans for the new intersection in December 2016 as presented as part of Auckland Transport's evidence to the Notice Of Requirement process in 2017 to get official approval for the next stage of the AMETI Busway project. In that evidence the AMETI planners made a big show of their intention to “Recognise the importance of the Panmure Roundabout in creating a sense of identity, and of the historic sign as an important landmark within the urban fabric”. Now, all trace of the Panmure Roundabout has disappeared and Auckland Transport are claiming that the Panmure sign does not meet the definition of 'historic heritage'.

They now claim that the December 2016 landscape plan as submitted to the 2017 NoR Hearings process was only ever an "aspirational document" and, after obtaining Resource Consent for the AMETI Busway project, the planners quietly removed the Panmure sign from the final 2018 plans for the new intersection at the request of the Kaitiaki Forum Project Control Group, which has commissioned its own gateway artwork for the intersection.

It is now possible that, after years of promises of public consultation about the refurbishment and relocation of the Panmure sign, the fate of the sign may simply be the scrapheap.