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From issue: Autumn 2004Costs Dimming the Light of Coastal Guardiansby Penelope CarrollWhat's to become of our lighthouses, srikingly elegant and reassurring on coastal cliff topsand rocky outcrops? Soaring maintenance costs and cheaper alternatives threaten their future.
Light from the old wooden lighthouse at Waipapa Pt has beamed out across Foveaux Strait for 120 years. The 13-metre tower, rising 21 metres above sea level, was built to mark the eastern approach to the strait after the wreck of the steamer Tararua in 1881 with the loss of 131 lives. Now, costly necessary repairs render its future uncertain. Maritime Safety Authority engineer Jim Foye says safety is becoming an issue. One option, as Foye sees it, is for the authority to maintain the light in the existing structure but someone else maintain the structure. Alternatively, the authority puts up a low-maintenance beacon close by and a community group or other body takes over the historic lighthouse. Last manned in 1976, the surrounding lighthouse buildings have already been demolished.The authority is discussing the future of Waipapa Pt lighthouse with a number of groups, including the Southland District Council, the Department of Conservation and the Historic Places Trust.
"We are a Government agency bound by budgets, and our priority is the safety of mariners. But we also don't want to see the historic aspect of lighthouses disappear," Foye says. "We are not in the business of bowling over old lighthouses.They are icons on the coast." With more than 1000 shipwrecks in the first 50 years of European settlement, building lighthouses around the rugged coast was a top priority. Apart from overseas trade and immigration shipping, many harbours were important for internal passenger travel and transporting goods in the days before comprehensive road and rail. The oldest, Pencarrow light, erected in 1857, was built of cast iron
prefabricated in Britain. By the 1880s, cast-iron towers were being produced
in New Zealand. Timber was also widely used. Most of these lighthouses
have not survived. But a handful have, including the original light at
Motuopao Island, off Cape Reinga, and Waipapa Pt. Maintained by the authority, 25 historic picturebook lighthouses remain in operation. But, as each comes up for routine maintenance and repainting, its cost effectiveness is being assessed.
Radio and navigation aids have reduced the need for tall lighthouses.
Several have already been decommissioned and passed out of authority control.
Pencarrow is now maintained by the Historic Places Trust; the Akaroa lighthouse
was moved from the heads into the township by a community group that maintains
it; the old Portland Island lighthouse was moved into Wairoa township;
and Cape Brett is being handed over to DoC. The wooden tower on Motuopao
Island, which guided ships from 1878-1941, is already managed by the department.
(The new lighthouse built to replace it at Cape Reinga - the most photographed
in the country - was the last of the traditional tall towers constructed.)
Most of the money to maintain lighthouses comes from the safety charge
levied on commercial shipping, which also covers search and rescue and
marine radio. He offers examples from overseas of lighthouses taken over as tourist attractions. The United States Government has offered hundreds of lighthouses free to qualified people who promise to take good care of them. In the States and Britain, old cottages and lighthouses are run as bed and breakfasts. In New South Wales, the National Parks and Wildlife Service manages nine lighthouses as tourist attractions, and visitors can stay in keepers' cottages. DoC archaeologist Catherine Barr suggests the last could be an option in New Zealand, although most station buildings have already been demolished. Barr is sad about this. While most of the towers are still there,"that's not a lot left in terms of telling the public what lighthouse life was like." At Cape Brett, for instance, only a keeper's house, modified into a tramping hut, remains out of the three keepers' houses, the school, the teacher's house and the sheds that made up the lighthouse station until automation 25 years ago. Barr is in a DoC team gathering information about what is left."When you visit some of the places and see how remote, how rugged they are," she says, "you just have to be impressed. And the way the towers stand out in the landscape - they're all impressive." Ray Walter, a lighthouse keeper for nearly 30 years and now a DoC ranger on Tiritiri Matangi (see story on page 16), champions the cause of public access to lighthouses. He used to guide people to the top of the historic tower until the publication of a visitor's photograph in the Woman's Weekly brought a padlock on the door. "People are denied access.They say it's about OSH regulations, but in Australia and the US the public are allowed up." Foye says overseas visitors doing lighthouse tours, and many people whose fathers or grandfathers were keepers, approach the authority."We can sometimes arrange visits, but people might have to wait several months. There are health-and-safety issues about the stairs and being close to generators and mechanical equipment." Access can also be a problem in remote locations. But there have been school trips to Castlepoint, Cape Egmont lighthouse was opened during DoC's Seaweek and Waipapa Pt lighthouse was open to during Conservation Week last year. Says Barr, "There were hundreds of people wanting to go up - more than there was time for." The Maritime Safety Authority owns all operational lighthouses outside harbour limits. Port authorities and regional councils own those within harbour limits, such as Taiaroa Head, Boulder Bank and Lyttelton Lighthouse. Fifteen lighthouses are registered as Category I or II historic places. Some are listed in district and regional plans What does the future hold for our lighthouses? Researcher Tony Nightingale, working with Barr on the inventory of lighthouses for DoC, believes it would be just about impossible to pull down a lighthouse. "No lighthouse has been demolished in New Zealand for decades," he says. "People have such a strong emotional connection with them, a connection which transcends physical and historical values." But somebody is still going to have to pick up the tab if this important
part of New Zealand's heritage is to be preserved. |
Lighthouse images: Grant Sheehan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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