Alice speaks out to save reserve

Photo: JASON OXENHAM

NATURAL FEATURE: Former deputy mayor of Mt Albert Alice Wylie is determined to make sure Mt Albert’s natural features are well looked after for future generations.

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Alice Wylie's mild manners concerning the state of a reserve named after her are being stretched to the limit.

The former Auckland city councillor and Mt Albert borough deputy mayor says she has tried to mind her own business, but her anger over the park’s lack of maintenance is making her vocal.

"I’m ceasing to hold my tongue and will speak out.

"I’m 86 and if I don’t there’s nobody left who will," she says.

"The whole reserve has gone past weeding maintenance to needing a complete overhaul and replanting."

Her list of concerns begins with a landscaped garden in the New North Rd reserve that was planted over a lava flow.

"It was a small showing of the eruption of Mt Albert. It was a feature before being covered over and planted.

"There are very few natural features left in Mt Albert. Most are gone beyond memory and if we don’t speak out about this one it will be too."

Mrs Wylie says although she enjoys cups of tea with friends under the reserve’s large olive tree, she still mourns the day the hibiscus walk, which was donated by Eden Gardens’ founder, the late Jack Clark, was pulled out.

She says Mr Clark donated $30,000 worth of plants from his nursery that were intended to show the public the variety of hibiscus specimens available.

"It was intended to be an Eden garden of the west.

"Instead it was a little tragedy for the west," she says.

"It was a little piece of paradise. Twenty years on and I’m the only one with the memory."

The reserve was a private residence before it became an industrial school and then Mt Albert Grammar School’s boarding house between 1927 and 1970. In 1983 the council bought the land and named it after Mrs Wylie before she retired from office in 1989.

Auckland City Council parks services manager Mark Bowater says staff are happy with the overall condition and maintenance of the reserve but some re-landscaping of the garden bed inside the ring road within the park is set to be done next summer.

"Recent improvement work in Alice Wylie Reserve includes the repair and reinstallation of the main wooden gates, and shrubbery pruning to increase passive surveillance through the reserve," he says.

"A small local improvement project concept has been forwarded to the Eden Albert Community Board for further consideration," Mr Bowater says.

- © Fairfax NZ News