The Howick Returned and Services Association (RSA) is increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress being made on its request to work from the Howick War Memorial Hall.
It’s almost a year since the Eastern Times reported that Howick RSA was calling on the Howick Local Board to allow it to utilise rooms at the Auckland Council-owned and managed Howick War Memorial Hall – previously known as the Howick Information Centre – in central Howick Village on the town square adjacent to where the Howick Village Market is held on Saturdays.
The Howick RSA believes it would be appropriate for it to work in the very distinctive red brick building in the heart of Howick Village, says its president, Barry Dreyer.
“Money for the Howick War Memorial Hall was raised by public subscription from the Howick community, subsidised in the monetary currency of the day, the New Zealand pound for pound, by the Government in the 1950s.
“It was not funded from any [former Howick Borough] council subscription. The chair of the fundraising committee was [Howick historian] Alan La Roche’s father, and the fundraising lead was around the Howick RSA.
“There is a war memorial plaque on the building. It’s one of only three such memorials in Howick,” says Dreyer.
“The Howick RSA has formally asked the Howick Local Board on three occasions since May 2024 for use of the hall as a general welfare centre for the region.
“There have been three business cases presented. All of these have been declined.”
Dreyer says the Howick RSA request is also based on the hall’s lack of use.
To prove its point, he’s made two Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (OIA) requests to the council over the past year, the first for the seven weeks ending February 21.
“With a focus on a 40-hour working week, the hall was booked for 75 per cent of the week but only used for 17 per cent.
“Only 23 per cent of bookings during that period were actually taken up.”
Dreyer says the unused booking times were unable to be taken up by any other organisation, as the original bookings stood.
“The actual usage of the hall totalled less than one day a week.”
Dreyer says after February 21, the council changed its security arrangements for the hall.
“For the period ending February 21, there was an electronic lock for the hall and statistics for usage against bookings to be gathered.”
But for Dreyer’s and the RSA’s second OIA hall usage request to the council, for the period April 1 to June 30, access to the hall was by key, “therefore there were no statistics collected on usage against bookings”, he says.
Information from the council showed:
- The hall was never booked on a Monday.
- Of the 520 hours available during the working week for the period, the hall was booked for 103.5 hours, slightly less than 20 per cent of the available time, and similar to usage in the first period ending February 21, at 17 per cent.
- There is no longer any measurement available to compare actual usage against bookings.
“If we take the same ratio of bookings to actual usage as the data shows in the first measurement period, then the hall was likely to be used for less than 24 hours during the working week over a period of 13 weeks,” Dreyer says.
“The RSA is seeking to use the War Memorial Hall as its administrative and welfare centre for four days during the working week – Mondays and Tuesdays, and Thursdays and Fridays, when the hall would be manned by specialist RSA support staff. The hall would be free for other users on Wednesdays.
“To those in the RSA, and a lot of people in the community, this is actually a no-brainer. A War Memorial Hall which is seldom used, and a specialist and experienced welfare group looking to use the hall as a central and accessible location for anyone in need in the Howick region.”
Dreyer says the Howick RSA has written support for its business case to use the Howick War Memorial Hall from Veterans Affairs New Zealand, the Ranfurly Veterans’ Trust, the Royal New Zealand RSA, Auckland District RSA, the Howick Residents and Ratepayers Association, Grey Power Howick Pakuranga, Howick Community Hub, and many local individuals.
He says the Howick Village Association and Pakuranga Rotary have also offered to provide formal support.
In response to Times questions, Howick Local Board chair Damian Light says: “As we explained to the Howick RSA at the time of their presentation, there is currently no process underway that would allow them to take over the management of the Howick War Memorial Hall.
“The Howick Local Board would need to resolve to initiate a process, including allocation of funding for staff to invest into the project.
“With limited budgets available, we’re focused on delivering outcomes that our growing community needs like libraries, playgrounds, and sports fields,” Lights says.
“The RSA presented an interesting proposal and it’s unfortunate that they chose not to engage with the previous process which ran from 2017 to 2024 without finding a suitable organisation to manage the space.
“In May 2024, we closed out that process and agreed to transition the building to a venue for hire, providing the clarity that the public had been asking for and allowing the community to activate the building through a well understood, fair and transparent process.
“To allow time for existing users to adapt, the board decided to implement hire fees from January 1, 2025,” Light says.
“Therefore, we don’t yet have a year’s worth of data on its utilisation so it’s too early to be determining if this shift has been successful.
“In the meantime, we understand that the RSA is utilising space in a building they own.”
The Howick RSA is using a residential flat it owns in Sale Street through its Howick RSA Charitable Trust for welfare and administrative work, but it’s hardly ideal for those tasks, and is taking up living space for a potential tenant needing accommodation, Dreyer says.
“The Howick RSA is looking to move these welfare activities to a more central location for those that are likely to utilise our welfare services.”
The RSA’s two “significant sets of welfare funds are dedicated to the communities in the Howick region”.
“The first is the Poppy Fund, dedicated to the support of Defence Force veterans and their immediate dependents,” Dreyer says.
“The second is the Community Fund which has a mandate to support people in need in the Howick region, and the development of youth activities. It’s a general welfare fund available to anyone living in the Howick region.”
- For earlier stories about the Howick RSA’s vision to use spaces in the Howick War Memorial, read: https://www.times.co.nz/news/rsa-pushes-on-to-occupy-war-memorial/ and https://www.times.co.nz/news/rsa-parades-plans-to-go-shop-front/
