RE-BUILDING TRUST: Moa Pt residents get a re-sealed footpath in Stewart Duff Dr from the nuclear bunker company.

MOA Pt residents who stumbled on plans for a nuclear cyclotron at the end of their street will demand an apology from Wellington City Council.

They will be writing to Mayor Kerry Prendergast when she returns from a business trip.

“The efforts to keep it secret were a concern I feel we have to take further,” says Moa Pt resident Marlene Mulholland.

She intends to send a letter to the council and Mayor, after what she describes as a less-than-satisfactory council response so far.

“Ray Ahipene-Mercer  is mayor at the moment and as he has been less than understanding when it comes to Moa Point concerns, I prefer to wait.”

However, Mr Ahipene-Mercer denies being “less than understanding” in communicating with residents: “No, not true.”

Meantime, after mentioning their distress to her staff at her electoral office, residents are “pleasantly surprised” local Labour MP Annette King has written a letter to Mayor Prendergast about the lack of communication between council and residents.

The council felt there was no need for public notification before last month approving the bunker-like building, which will be used for producing radioactive material for cancer scanning.

Councillors reasoned the application from Pacific Radiology Properties Limited for consent had “…nothing to suggest that there are unusual or exceptional circumstances relevant to the proposal.”

Their failure to engage the community has caused a lot of grief, say residents, who have said they felt entitled to an explanation and that the council should have reasonably expected a radioactive bunker to be of intense public interest and concern.

Pacific Radiation chairman Trevor Fitzjohn is rebuilding relations with residents and has been forthcoming with information, they say.

He went to a residents meeting in Mrs Mulholland’s home to answer questions.

Residents have since complained they had to walk on the busy airport road after the company dug up the footpath for a driveway to the facility, so the footpath has been re-sealed by his company.

Mr Fitzjohn has also had the Stewart Duff Dr bus shelter washed for residents.