NEWMARKET FOOTPATH WORKS HALTED OVER SINGLE STROPPY CAMELLIA

A $1.4 million footpath upgrade on Broadway has been paused for the third week running because Auckland Council cannot agree on what to do about one camellia, which is, by all accounts, a bush.

The camellia in question sits in a planter outside a shopfront and has, according to a council arborist's report, 'established character value within the streetscape'. It is approximately 1.6 metres tall and, when this reporter visited, flowering in a colour my late husband Gerald would have called 'pink-ish'.

Local retailer Anjali Prasad said she'd watched four high-vis blokes stand around the camellia for ninety minutes on Tuesday before getting back in the ute and leaving. 'They measured it. They photographed it. One of them touched a leaf. Then they all went to Mecca for coffee. Nothing's happened since.'

An Auckland Council spokesperson confirmed the works were 'temporarily on hold pending stakeholder engagement with the planting', and that an external consultant had been engaged to assess 'relocation options'. The consultant's day rate was not disclosed, but is understood to be more than the camellia is worth.

Meanwhile the footpath remains half-dug, ratepayers are stepping around a trench, and a perfectly serviceable shrub is being treated like it pays rates. My son's girlfriend, who lives in Grey Lynn and won't shut up about 'urban canopy', would no doubt approve. The rest of us would like the path back.

The camellia, contacted for comment, did not respond.