Borell Road

The geography and the very name of the Tauranga harbour– a resting place for canoes – made the boat the foremost means of transport for centuries of human occupation. It was only when European settlers arrived, bringing their horses and wheeled vehicles, that roads became, in any sense, interesting or useful infrastructure. Around Tauranga, roads were a major preoccupation for a long time (a preoccupation that has continued to the present century) and were slow to arrive (as were the muddied, jolted, dust-covered travellers).

DP22854 colour map of Borell Road western end 1929
LINZ database, accessed at Tauranga City Library

A local road that seems to have been in place forever, Borell Road in Te Puna, was created only in 1930. Of course a very old land route, initially a footpath, traversed the end of the Waikaraka estuary, from the Te Puna stream, possibly as far as the pa inland from Oikimoke [1]: the name, Paparoa, “refers to the long plank used to cross the Oturu” [2] and is now given to the marae uphill from that stream.

Early surveyors ruled light red lines across the landscape to indicate where they thought roads might feasibly go. Theophilus Heal correctly guessed one would run out towards Te Kariti (approximately the route of the present Te Puna Road) and one to the northeastern mouth of the Waikaraka estuary.  He even essayed a lateral connection [3], one that took the traveller across the neck of the Waikaraka, where Waikaraka Drive, and its eastern connection, are today.

Looking west towards Paparoa marae. Photo: Beth Bowden

Presumably the nuisance of timing one’s travel according to whether the mudflats were wet or dry persuaded some of the landowners along the Waikaraka road (now Snodgrass Road) to lobby for a more inland route. The East Coast Main Trunk railway had gone through to Tauranga in 1927 with a causeway and short bridge over the Te Puna River estuary, and a much longer and much more expensive one at the mouth of the Wairoa. The line between the two bridges avoided the upland topography of Phipps’ and Armstrong’s farms.  Instead the engineers curved the railway over easier country. [4]  That curve took them right through Werahiko (Frank) Borell’s land. Local settlers seem to have thought that a similarly-shaped roadway was a convenient inevitability, especially if it were named for the landowner most affected by it. [5]

Signpost, western end Borell Road. Photo: Beth Bowden

Werahiko saw neither convenience nor inevitability, and he was not flattered by having his name on the map. A certain amount of brinksmanship was going on. C. E. H. Allen, son of an interested landowner, made his 1927 offer of really quite a lot of fencing contingent on receiving an affirmative answer on a roadway from the Tauranga County Council “within four months.” [6] At the same meeting, the Clerk dryly observed that there was a grant of £ for £ for the land, but “the new road would have to be legalised”. Clerkly process overtook brinksmanship. The meeting concluded with a resolution to offer Mr Borell £50 for his land and “…failing his acceptance, that steps be taken to acquire the land under the Public Works Act.”

SO25276 Borell Road land to be taken May 1929
LINZ database, accessed at Tauranga City Library

Werahiko was unimpressed, it appears. By the following month he had instructed a lawyer and spurned the offer of compensation. [7] By the following year he had put some muscle behind another attempt to take a roadway within land owned by his kin, up on the Whakamarama block. [8]

But the settlers persisted.  In April 1928  Messrs A. W. Snodgrass, F. H. Allen, W. Phipps, A. W. Anderson, J. Knox and H. Storer had signed “a petition for the declaration of a special rating area… [for] Borell’s Road at Te Puna, and the object is to raise a loan of £250.”  County Councillors poured cold water. Such loans were detrimental to financial administration, and the application would be entertained only so far as legalising the road “when all formalities have been complied with.” [9]

Signpost, eastern end Borell Road. Photo: Beth Bowden

Next month they were back again, this time with their womenfolk. [10] C.E.H and Mrs Allen, Mr and Mrs Knox and their daughter, and a Miss Snodgrass, as well as Messrs Snodgrass and Phipps, formed a deputation to urge the acquisition of Borell Road. [11] Produce could not go out; manure could not be brought in. “Only a culvert required fixing.” Perhaps the loan should be increased; the settlers were “paying a little over £122 per annum in rates and at present had no access.” At this point a mystifying (to me at least), mollifying letter, proposing an alternative roadway from the Minister was read out: it cut no ice at all.  The road the settlers wanted, “now”, “was along the railway and went through Messrs Borell’s and Allen’s properties.” Councillors’ comments as reported in the Bay of Plenty Times [12] read as both supportive - and circumspect.

By August Werahiko had rallied his forces. Interestingly, he invoked the importance of the Crown; and of boats. In his representations to the Council he rejected the idea of a loan, relied on the Minister’s letter and reserved “the right of my boat landing on the Oturu Stream, as it is a great benefit to me and my family for our boats to go out to earn my living by fishing in the harbour ...” This too cut no ice. Councillor Darragh successfully moved that the Council apply for a loan of £250 for the purposes of “acquiring, constructing, fencing and legalizing Borell’s Road, Te Puna.” [12]

The loan, the Gazette notice, and the surveys went through despite continued opposition from Werahiko and his family. [14] And the settlers were discontented as well. Even in October 1930 the road was “surveyed and fenced, but the road was not made”. [15] They were soothed by promises and, eventually, metal from the Te Puna Quarry. Frank junior, full of spirit even four years later, pushed back at the Council about impediments to access along Youngson’s Road. [16] Back in Te Puna, Werahiko was dealing with stock that found the new road a convenient browsing route. [17] Meanwhile, on Snodgrass Road, subdivision, especially along the harbour frontages of the Waikaraka, was becoming commonplace. [18] By 1947, the main problem on Borell Road was the gorse [19] ...

Railway line and culvert, Borell Road. Photo: Beth Bowden

References

[1] See SO424, the map drawn in 1865 by Theophilus Heal, Surveyor.  A copy is in the Tauranga Library.
[2] Conversation with Billy Borell, 6 February 2020.  Possibly a contraction of paepae roa.  I am indebted to the Borell family for their support for my recounting this story of their tipuna Werahiko.
[3] ibid SO424
[4] But still challenging: the Borell Road section of the ECMT is one of the steepest on the whole line.
[5] The settlers seem to have called it Borell’s Road from very early in the process: see their petition of April 1928, reported at https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19280414.2.13
[6] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19270312.2.17
[7] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19270409.2.4  It is not clear whether Werahiko ever accepted compensation, worth about $5,000 in $NZ today: https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator
[8] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19280116.2.12
[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19280414.2.13
[10] It is worth pointing out that the status of women as land holders, and therefore ratepayers, in the Tauranga County was by this time well established.
[11] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19280518.2.17
[12] ibid
[13] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19280815.2.11
[14] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19290523.2.14 ; https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19290916.2.14 ; https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19291014.2.10
[15] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19301011.2.19