26 July, 2025

Music man’s footpath gripes strike a chord

Mind your step… Bruce Farrell on bumpy ground near his Lake Rd shop

Lake Rd music store owner Bruce Farrell has walked the footpaths of Takapuna to work for 45 years. Now he has taken added steps to have their bumpy old paving replaced.
Farrell appeared at the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board’s July meeting last week, urging action to rectify trip hazards from broken surfaces.
“The footpath is past its use-by date. It has small pavers and they’re uneven in places and dangerous,” he told the board.
Tree roots were pushing up the footpath, and splitting tree surrounds contributed to problems.
Farrell said he and other passersby had picked up a shaken woman who fell on the uneven pavers outside Westpac Bank about three months ago.
“I’ve tripped several times, but managed to right myself,” the owner of Farrells Music House said.
Such incidents were common. Other than Auckland Transport patching around tree roots and replacing the odd paver, he doubted much had been done on the western side of Lake Rd in around 20 years.
The block from Westpac on the Huron St corner to the former ANZ Bank premises on the Northcroft St corner was particularly bad. This was tough for elderly people to navigate when they had to go to the bank.
“When you’re walking, you have to look all the time for uneven pavers,” he said.
The footpath on the next block south, where his shop is sited in an arcade, was also broken up in places.
Larger pavers and levelled surfaces, like those on Hurstmere Rd, would be safer and more presentable, he told board members. Maintenance was a minimum requirement.
Members were sympathetic, having previously called on AT for town centre upgrades.
“I completely agree, that footpath needs a full renewal,” said deputy chair Terence Harpur, who in his other role as Takapuna Beach Business Association chief executive has repeatedly called for improvements.
He acknowledged that AT “patch occasionally”, but said some previous work around tree bases had created new trip hazards.
Harpur said he would talk to AT to see if it had any scheduled renewal work in the pipeline and if this might be sped up. But due to cost, a full repaving any time soon is considered unlikely.
Board chair Mel Powell said residents could help reinforce the case for improvements by logging incidents or issues.
Meanwhile, playwright and Takapuna resident Sir Roger Hall has alerted the Observer to uneven surfaces and a loose drain cover on The Strand.

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