By ROB MAETZIG - Taranaki Daily News Saturday, 3 March 2007
School buildings and land valued at millions are sitting empty and unused – and open to attack by vandals and thieves – throughout Taranaki.
Taranaki Daily News investigations reveal 37 surplus school properties are currently mired in a Ministry of Education disposal process – a slow procedure which takes years to complete.
Eighteen of the surplus properties are closed schools and these are being targeted by thieves who have now turned to trashing them as well as taking the valuable copper on the buildings.
Last week four now-closed coastal Taranaki schools – Oaonui, Warea, Pungarehu and Newall – have been hit by the thieves.
And there are plenty more for them to choose from. Te Kiri, Motunui, Tahora, Mahoe, Pihama, Otakeho, Stanley, Okaiawa, Kapuni, Takaora, Okato, Matau, Kaimiro and Douglas are all sitting empty and unattended – and prime candidates to be attacked by what authorities fear is an organised crime operation stealing the copper.
The thieves can even access a ministry website to check on the status of all the properties. The site lists every "active" property disposal in New Zealand, their exact address, and even the names and addresses of the agents contracted to dispose of each property.
The ministry is legally required to dispose of surplus properties – schools included – that are no longer needed for a so-called "public work".
There are four key sequential steps in this disposal process:
Transferring a property to another Government department or territorial local authority if it is required for another public work.
If the property is not so required, then it will be offered back for sale to the previous owner or their successors.
If there is no such sale, then the property is assessed for any Treaty of Waitangi claims under what is called the Maori Protection Mechanism. If any claim is successful, then the property is usually "land banked" pending settlement of the claim by the Government.
If a property clears those three steps, it is then placed on the open market for sale.
Of the 37 Taranaki properties now going through the disposal process, just four are on the open market – three of them are at Opunake and Te Kiri. The other property on the open market is the former Te Kiri School.
Fifteen properties, including the former Tahora, Motunui, Okato, Matau, Oaonui, Kaimiro and Douglas schools, are at the offer-back stage. All the rest, including the former schools at Pungarehu, Mahoe, Pihama, Otakeho, Stanley Rd, Okaiawa, Warea, Kapuni, Newall Rd and Takaora, are being held by the Maori Protection Mechanism.
