Media release for immediate use Monday 15 January 2024

BEGINS
Gulf Harbour Country Club disrepair puts the Local Community at Serious Risk

Fourteen days into 2024 the state of the Gulf Harbour Country Club (GHCC) and its environs is causing increasing concern to Keep Whangaparāoa’s Green Spaces (KWGS) members, local residents and members of the wider Whangaparāoa community.
The course itself is overgrown and weed infested with no mowing or even basic maintenance being carried out since early December. As the temperature has climbed the risk of grass fire has been exacerbated with the approximately 400 properties that back directly onto the course particularly affected. By the end of the month, if nothing is done to mow the grass given these extremely dry conditions then the fire risk will be extreme.
There has also been a number of motorcycles and small all-terrain vehicles driving all over the course itself. These are a risk to the substantial number of people who are accessing the course for walking and exercising dogs now that the GHCC is closed. We understand that his dangerous activity has been reported to the police.
Signage on the course has been defaced and photographs of this and the vandalism and damage to the main clubhouse building has been widely circulated on social media including the KWGS Facebook group pages (https://www.facebook.com/groups/190068190752030 The photographs show serious damage to the interior fixtures and fittings of the clubhouse building and graffiti painted onto both the interior and exterior walls of the building itself. Much of this graffiti is gross and offensive. Recently, we understand, council workers water-blasted a swastika from the public road close to the entrance to the GHCC.
KWGS are also concerned about maintenance of the waterways that were previously the responsibility of GHCC under their resource consent provisions. We believe that this required maintenance has not been carried out - again putting the whole of Gulf Harbour at risk should there be another extreme weather event with associated extreme water flows and flooding.
KWGS believe that the owner should be held to account for the lack of ongoing maintenance and basic upkeep on the course itself, the clubhouse and associated buildings, and the waterways that are the responsibility of GHCC under its resource consent permissions.
We urge the Auckland Council hold the GHCC owner to account for their actions.

ENDS

For more information contact Howard Baldwin:  comms@kwgnz.org

Visit our website: www.kwgnz.org