1 October, 2025

Devonport desperately needs more people – Brown

Wayne’s World… Mayor Wayne Brown and council candidate Danielle Grant at the Grey Power meeting

Mayor Wayne Brown reckons Devonport town centre needs a “good kick along”, starting with some fresh paint. “It desperately needs more people living in it. If you go round behind the shops it’s terrible. You need people living in apartments there,” he told the Flagstaff.
“Shopfronts need money spent on them,” he continued when questioned by the paper after speaking at a Grey Power North Shore meeting for local body election candidates last Friday.
Asked by if he was serious about his recent comments that “Nobody likes Devonport”, made during an election meeting in Hobsonville this month, he said with a grin: “At the end of the boring day, sometimes you say something.” To whether he regretted this, he said: “No, not really”.
But he was quick to add that he actually liked Devonport and often visited. “It’s a lovely suburb.” But it needed a “bit of a reality check,” he said.

“It’s the only part of my city where the population is falling – and that’s no good.”
Brown said he was involved in the building of the apartments beside the Esplanade in the mid-1990s. But he now thought the centre was looking tired and empty.
“I love old buildings,” he said. But he also liked vibrancy, which was why he lived near Ponsonby. “Devonport should be the Ponsonby of the North Shore.” It was ideally located for easy access to the CBD by ferry, but needed more investment in keeping up appearances and attracting visitors and more residents. New apartments should be built behind the heritage main street.
When asked if he intended to do anything to follow up on other comments he had made at Hobsonville, that Devonport should get higher-rise buildings as per other suburbs with main hubs for buses and trains, he stepped back from further stirring this pot. Brown had told the Hobsonville audience he wanted Devonport also dubbed a transit mainline due to its proximity to the CBD and having a ferry terminal.
At the Grey Power meeting at Netball North Harbour, attended by around 120 people, he spared Devonport from further prodding, instead talking of council’s investment in ferries and his wish to see dynamic lanes introduced on Lake Rd. He said he would push for the latter with Auckland Transport, now he had returned the organisation to more direct council control. Mayoral challengers in Kerrin Leoni and Eric Chuah also spoke, but with less audience cut through, as did council candidates for the North Shore: Danielle Grant, John Gillon, sitting councillor Richard Hills and Act’s Helena Roza.