John Stewart Murray

By Alida Van der Velde

On April 11, Mr Max Pedersen,  KCDC Councillor Mark Benton and I met to talk about progress on a place of remembrance for our late friend, the Very Reverend John Murray, at the Kapiti Council Chambers.

Earlier, our Council agreed to nominate the Groves Road beach access as a possible site.

This place was proposed by John’s family, who turned down a previous site which we all felt was not appropriate.

This was good news and we are very grateful for Council agreeing to this.

The complicated process of approval

The next step is for this site to be approved by local iwi. Experience tells us that this consultation can take a considerable length of time.

When and if iwi approves this site, the proposal goes back to the Paraparaumu / Raumati Community Board.

If they approve, the proposal then goes to a full Council meeting chaired by our mayor, who previously strongly supported this idea.

Who knows when the opening ceremony will be?  Maybe we’ll all get up there with our walking frames and have a swim!

On-going ….

It was arranged that I keep in contact with Mr Pedersen and Councillor Benton regarding progress.

We thank the Council for their work to honour John, and friends and supporters for your continued interest and support.

(KIN congratulates you Alida on your patient efforts to get John rightfully acknowledged.)