WCC intend to change the name of our Polhill Gully - Have your say

John from Aro Valley

Dear Gullyites,
The WCC is proposing to change the name of Polhill Gully with no consultation. To have your say email your opinion to communications@wcc.govt.nz. The sooner the better. Submissions close 08 October.

Polhill Gully is an important cultural reference for the Mitchelltown and Aro Valley communities, from Baker Polhill harvesting wood there from the 1840s for his firewood business and supplying timber to the shipbuilding industry, to it being the site of a rifle range in the 1860s (despite Mitchelltown school being located close by). In the 1951 waterfront lockout, the entrance to Holloway was closed off by Police as Mitchelltown was a hotbed of union activism. Food and other supplies had to be bought in over the hill from Polhill Gully to support the strikers and their families.

In more recent times in the 1970s, when Victoria University proposed building three, tiered playing fields in Polhill Gully which would have destroyed the largest area of regenerating native bush in the inner city and changed the landscape of our communities forever, the various Mitchelltown and Aro Valley community groups opposed this vigorously over a number of years until Victoria University backed down, and Polhill Gully became a City Council Recreation Reserve in 1989.

For these reasons I think Polhill Gully is a name we cherish, and to change that would be a great loss to us all. This proposed name change seems to have come out of nowhere. Please stop this madness by emailing your opinion to communications@wcc.govt.nz right away.

Yours in frustration
John
(117 Holloway)