Cape Coast Community Group
The CCCG embraces everything about the Cape Coast (Heretaunga) and its surrounding area.
It is an advocate for local issues, beautification, protection and wellbeing with a mandate to
positively promote the area 'giving Hawke’s Bay an edge'.
Cape Coast Community Group Committee 2025 – 2026
Angela Britten; Bel Evans; Andrea Mack; Ann Redstone; Kerry Brannigan; Keith Newman; Roy Boonen; Arlo Armstrong; Sue Franklin (Te Awanga Hall Custodian); Matt Goodin (Haumoana Hall Custodian); Marcel van Hooijdonk; Kim van Hooijdonk; Tim Channing-Pearse
Message from Chairperson Ann Redstone
Report to CCCG AGM, 24 Sept 2025
My heartfelt thanks to the Committee for their time and energy over
what has been a pretty busy year.
We formed three dedicated sub-committees during the past year,
the Flood Protection Group, chaired by Roy Boonen who is driving
this important kaupapa. We are making progress on our discussions
regarding flood mitigation and working well with HBRC and HDC.
This sub-committee reports to the CCCG Committee and most of
the members who volunteered to be on it are also involved with the
HBRC Focus and Community Reference Groups discussing the
Coastal Hazards Strategy adoption and funding models.
We also have a Marketing sub-committee exploring ways to raise the Cape Coast profile and perceived value via signage and a website and a third subcommittee is organising organise Community parties. Predicted gale force westerlies forced the postponing of the 2025 event but we’re going to try again on the 21st March 2026.
The party is an opportunity to share information about Emergency Management and practise a hikoi to the school which is our evacuation spot. There will be games, races etc for the children, some kai, spot prizes donated by various local businesses. It’s a wonderful opportunity for the community to get to know one another and have some fun.
The Committee recently supported the Haumoana School community with a letter to the Ministry of Education regarding the cancelling of the school bus service to Haumoana. We outlined our concerns about safety, particularly on Parkhill road which has no cycle pathway, and the added traffic congestion and hazards as without the bus most children will have to be transported by private vehicle.
We also sent a letter of support for a petition from Grange Rd North residents requesting HDC lift the crowns of the trees at the Grange Rd Domain to give better lines of sight and discourage people from living under them as there has been some pretty unsociable behaviour in the past.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank some of the committee members. Graeme Bycroft who is standing down because he and his wife Christine are off travelling for a while. Graeme has been our treasurer for the past seven plus years and has done an excellent job. Thank you, Graeme.
We were very sad to lose our former President Honey Lee Blakeney-Cabot who stepped down earlier in the year for personal reasons. Honey Lee did a great job and we thank her for her invaluable input and leadership.
I would also like to thank the Te Awanga Hall custodian, Sue Franklin, and the Haumoana Hall custodian, Matt Goodin for the many voluntary hours they have spent looking after the halls and generating revenue via bookings. The Te Awanga Hall is owned by the community and the Haumoana Hall by Hastings District Council.
Congratulations to Kim & Marcel van Hooijdonk who were presented with a well-deserved Civic Award for their work in the community.
We are very grateful for the massive amount of work Hastings Council has completed on upgrading the Haumoana hall over the past year. I’m sure you all will agree it’s looking great! While I’m talking about this hall I would also like to thank Honey Lee and Matt for their efforts in applying for a grant to add solar power as the hall is also part of the emergency hub. You may recall it was very well used following Cyclone Gabrielle.
Council staff also let us know in March that there was a $50,000 grant available for emergency hubs so we got together and organised the heat pumps and a 25,000 litre water storage tank. There is also a covered trailer with emergency supplies including a generator, mattresses etc which will be kept at the school and used in case of evacuation events. We will have two generators stored at the school, one of which was gifted by WOW.
The Eco Reef wall has been completed at the Surf carpark reserve. This project was driven by community members and funded by Hastings District Council as its’ main purpose is to protect Council assets, the stormwater lagoon, road and infrastructure.
All in all I feel we have had a very productive and successful year and I thank everyone for their support and mahi.
Kia ora
Ann Redstone
Convergence of community groups
The Cape Coast Community Group doesn’t stand in isolation, it represents a long history of community groups that have a passion to represent the interests of those living along and adjacent to this precious coastal area.
There have been several attempts to bring together different groups
formed in Haumoana and Te Awanga to provide a single voice for
homeowners and residents and bridge the perceived divide.
From 2018 CCCG set out to refresh that vision, to connect us up
and make things happen.
The area has a proud history of advocacy with groups dating back to the Clive Grange (Haumoana) Improvement Society and Beach Improvement Committee that lobbied for playgrounds and more sanitary facilities at the Haumoana Domain and beach in the 1920s.
Then there was the Haumoana Progressive Association and Haumoana Black Bridge Committee in the late 1930s who refused to be fobbed off when local authorities rejected then delayed plans need for a bridge and better access into this area.
Multiple groups formed over the decades asking county and city and regional councils to do something about coastal erosion and flooding, resulting in years of lobbying and locals mostly being fobbed off.
Local matriarch Joan Scott was instrumental in forming the Haumoana and District Ratepayers and Residents Assoc which later evolved into the Haumoana Ratepayers Association. Those groups and the Te Awanga Progressive Association (TAPA) continued to make their voices known but also had a valued social function running events and getting people together.
APEC and HB Clean Sea Coalition were both formed to address the sewage and pollution along the coast with the latter started by Ann Redstone with current CCCG member Andrea Mack as a sub-committee of Haumoana Ratepayers.
A new group emerged in 2009 around ongoing threats to the community from coastal erosion and inundation, picking up on several groups before it who had been worn down by lack of action. Local authorities proposed coastal protection solutions that would have either rated people off their properties or begun to lay the basis for ‘managed retreat’.
That group WOW Inc (Walking on Water) was founded by its first chairperson Ann Redstone who became a three term Hastings District councillor and is currently chair of the CCCG. WOW was established through public meetings and began to challenge council plans and prepare alternatives over a 12-year period.
For many years TAPA was a strong community advocate, building the Te Awanga Hall, pitching in to create ad hoc coastal protection including the infamous railway irons on the beach and holding numerous public functions. With its regular newsletters and meetings over decades it addressed local concerns, becoming a kind of community glue, although it wasn’t officially registered until 2008.
In 2018, TAPA, by agreement with its committee, evolved into the more inclusive Cape Coast Community Group in 2018.
Part of the mandate of WOW Inc was to unify the broad interests of Haumoana, Te Awanga and Clifton under a single umbrella term, which is where the name Cape Coast came from. It is now a widely recognised term for the area in Heretaunga, distinct of course from the location of the same name in Ghana on West Africa’s Atlantic coast.
Post Cyclone Gabrielle two loosely framed community groups emerged, Haumoana Flood Protection and Te Awanga Flood Protection. Those groups worked with WOW Inc to find common ground and purpose around coastal and flood protection.
That work continues and WOW Inc has shut down and its assets and work folded into the Cape Coast Flood Protection Group, a sub-group of CCCG (you will find details on this site).
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