Historians fear Heritage network collapse

Laurel Stowell | 2nd February 2010

Wanganui members of the Historic Places Trust are angered, shocked and concerned that the Government intends to "disestablish" the trust's local branches.

They say heritage advocacy in the region will be razed  by the change, and there are no other organisations poised to take up the work.

The news came this week  in letters from the Ministry for Culture  and Heritage.

 The letters said the trust's branches would cease, with their role taken over by independent heritage advocacy groups.

The advocacy role of branches sometimes conflicted with the regulatory role of the trust itself, the letters say.

The Government funds 80 per cent of  the regulatory work, and  was going to appoint the trust's entire board, rather than having members elected.

 The secretary of the Whanganui branch, Wendy Pettigrew, was furious  that local branches were  not wanted.

She said the decisions were taken without any consultation with the branches and would totally dismantle the grassroots heritage networks that had supported the trust for  50 years.

It would take  years to set up an independent heritage advocacy trust in Wanganui, and separate ones would also be needed for Ruapehu and Rangitikei.

In the meantime, heritage advocacy would crumble and district councils were unlikely to do much, she said.

Since her involvement in the Whanganui branch in 2002, there had never been a time when branch advocacy conflicted with the regulatory actions of the trust.

She was at a loss to find a reason for the change.

 It was  not to cut costs, because the Whanganui branch only got $2000 a year from the trust, plus some expenses and small honoraria.

People who had put in many hours of voluntary labour would be disenfranchised, she predicted.

"Senior management and the trust and ministry have no idea how to deal with volunteers."

Wanganui architect Bruce Dickson, who has been involved with the trust for 40 years,  also  cannot understand the  decision.

"They will lose all that voluntary participation throughout New Zealand. The knowledge of people like Wendy Pettigrew is invaluable," he said.

That local knowledge had been useful to him in his work, and he said the Whanganui branch had always acted responsibly and sensibly.

"You could learn an awful lot from them. It seems to me that most of that knowledge is going to be lost.

"Most of it isn't written down, and it's absolutely important in the history of a community."

Mr Dickson was in the process of writing a letter to the national body asking it to reconsider and he hoped a lot of other people will do the same.

The Whanganui branch will discuss the decision at its next meeting on February 11.