Move to block reserve lease

Residents of the Karikari Peninsula in the Far North are trying to block the lease of a public reserve to a Chinese developer.

The council is considering leasing part of the Perehipe beach reserve at Whatuwhiwhi to Carrington Jade, which owns the nearby Top Ten Holiday Park.

For decades, the park’s former Kiwi owners used the reserve land to accommodate campers at peak summer times. In return, they mowed the reserve, planted trees and provided water for the public toilets, in what the council has called a “gentleman’s agreement” . They installed a playground, low fences and powered sites for campervans and caravans.

Resident Nick Walsh said most people did not know the area was a public reserve because it was made to look like part of the holiday park. Now people knew it was a reserve , there was a growing feeling it should be returned to the community,he said. He and others were distributing submission forms and urging neighbours to tell the council they wanted the Perehipe Reserve back.

$6.5m Lotto winner found

The search for the winner of a $6.5 million Lotto prize left unclaimed for almost two weeks is over.

The winning ticket for the Powerball First Division prize drawn on March 11 was sold by Gisborne’s Grant Bros, and a Lotto spokeswoman said Herald the winner has now come forward.

​The $6.5 million Powerball First Division prize was the 13th First Division winning ticket Grant Bros had sold over the years – but its first Powerball win.

Store owner Renee Grant said the store was bustling as customers came in to check their tickets.

“It’s really exciting for us. We really want the person to come forward and claim their prize as we know it’s going to be absolutely life-changing,” she said. “Everyone is looking high and low for the ticket. Each day the ticket goes unclaimed, more and more people are coming through the door to see if they could be the winner.

“People are also coming in just to buy their tickets from us – I think the word has got out that we are the lucky store in town.”

Violence summit trashed

A national summit on family violence has been slammed by a victim advocacy group as “too little, too late” and an “empty gesture” by politicians ahead of the general election.

Justice Minister Amy Adams and Social Development Minister Anne Tolley announced they were hosting the summit in Wellington on June 7. “We know that family violence is a significant and complex issue in New Zealand, with police responding to an incident every five minutes,” Adams said this week. “That’s why I’ve made helping to reduce family violence my core priority.”

Adams said that every day across New Zealand there were “large numbers of people working hard to combat this horrific form of abuse”.

However, new family violence advocacy group Backbone Collective slammed the summit with founder Deborah Mackenzie saying it was an “empty gesture” ahead of the election in September.

She claimed the government was simply “paying lip service” by holding the summit.