Heritage Strategy Action Plan - Auckland Council

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1.0 Heritage Advocacy
1.1 Heritage Manager
The single major problem facing heritage advocacy in Waitakere City is the lack of a heritage
champion within the Council. So many of Council’s functions have a heritage component. The
Holman Report identified the following sections of Council which are involved in some aspect of
cultural heritage:
• Project Management, Libraries, Property Services and Information Technology
• Customer Operations (Resource Management/Building Consent Services and Urban
Revitalisation)
• Public Affairs (Communication Support)
• Strategy and Development (Strategic Implementation and Social and Environmental Policy)
• Support Services (Archives, Legal and Insurance)
• Parks
• Arts
• Maori Issues
Currently there is no staffing provision for the integrated management of cultural heritage and no
overall formal co-ordination between the various Council units and sections and between
individual staff members to maximise benefits for the City’s cultural heritage and to ensure
streamlined procedures and comprehensive cross-communication in terms of heritage
management.
It is vital that a suitably qualified and experienced heritage manager be recruited as soon as
possible.
Although Auckland City has a much larger population than does Waitakere City, it has a similar
sized geographical area, nevertheless the Heritage Unit of Auckland City Council has a manager
and six full time staff.
The Auckland Regional Council has a Cultural Heritage Liaison Group which meets regularly on
matters of heritage concern in the Auckland Region. To date, representation of Waitakere City on
this group has been poor.
Both the Auckland Branch of the NZ Historic Places Trust in its submission to the 1999/2000
Draft Annual Plan and also the West Auckland Historical Society have requested that Council
appoint heritage staff, one of whose tasks will be to provide advice to the public and to liaise with
community groups on heritage matters.
The New Zealand Historic Places Trust, Auckland Branch, submission to the Waitakere City
Council Annual Plan 1999/2000 sought the inclusion of qualified in-house staff dedicated to:
• the conservation and protection of the City’s heritage resources
• the provision of professional heritage advice
• processing resource consents
• preparing and implementing policy