NATURAL ARENA

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 140, 3 September 1927, Page 12

NATURAL ARENA

MANGERE’S SPEEDWAY NO INTERFERENCE WITH GRAVES AN undertaking that the Maori burial ground will not be interfered with by the proposed motor-racing track at Pukaki Lagoon, Mangere, is given by Mr. George Henning, the owner of the property. A petition has been presented to Parliament by Kahupake Potatau, asking for the security of the ground. It is stated that the ground was included by mistake in a land sale. “I have not asked for the exhumation of the bodies because that it quite unnecessary,” said Mr. Henning. “The graves do not come within a chain, of the proposed speedway. I have no intention of interfering in any way with the area. Burials have taken place there while I have owned the land. All I suggest is that the actual burial ground shall be fenced.” The Pukahi Lagoon forms a great natural amphitheatre, and now that the area has been drained by Mr. Henning there are 90 acres of flat, in a basin of sloping hills. Nature has done most of the work, even to the banking of the track. Only three miles from Onehunga, the place seems designed to be the speed arena of the future. Shaped like a crater, with a circumference of one and a-half miles, the basin was filled by the sea until Mr. Henning, after several unsuccessful attempts, put up a stop-wall and floodgates. The total area of the basin and hills is about 250 acres .