Petrol Pumping again at Paraparaumu Beach – Kāpiti and Coast Independent

Jim Webber reports ……….that the only petrol station at Paraparaumu Beach, Challenge Kapiti, is back in the fuel business.

For more than three months it has been the petrol-pump equivalent of the pub with no beer, victim of a problem involving fuel supply, banks and management issues.

The fuel drought broke at 4am on Monday with a tanker delivery that saw the beach bowser able to fill vehicles again. Waiting to replenish the Challenge tanks at the corner of Seaview Road and McLean Street — at $30,000 a time — has been a delicate balancing act for owner Grant Anderson.

“For me it’s been mostly cashflow and balances,” he said.

Grant Anderson is full of praise for the local community which has borne the brunt of having no local fuel for cars — and particularly for the large fleet of boats: “People have been so good and supportive,” he says.

The no-petrol station has never closed during the fuel drought but has continued to supply its usual retail lines and a few more as well to help the business stay afloat.

Updated 10th March 2009

STORY OF THE WEEK

Kāpiti Coast councillors have toured of one of Aotearoa's unique buildings, the heritage - listed Rotunda at the former Otaki Health Camp, the country’s first.

Jeremy Smith reports that the 105-year-old, eight-sided rotunda predates the Health Camp.

It wasn't actually built in Otaki, but was one of two built in Rotorua in 1915 as part of a military hospital, on the site of Rotorua’s present public hospital.

Later they were taken to Otaki for the opening of the health camp in 1931.

Full story in the main column (December 19).

100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.