Beach Haven, New Zealand

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Beach Haven is a suburb of North Shore, New Zealand , one of the four cities which comprise Auckland and was home to strawberry farms and holiday baches in the old hay days. However, in 1922 the land was subdivided by the Beach Haven Land Subdivision Co. into plots. However, much of the roading work and infrastructure was rushed and is a consequence of Beach Haven's lack of evident planning and odd problem in sewerage and narrows roads.

A well-known Beach Haven resident is Frank Larking, whose life long dedication and work has been hailed by locals for his achievement to maintain the Beach Haven Wharf.Larking is also responsible for leading the massive protests due to the council's plan to bust down n old heritage wharf dock. Fortunately he succeeded but did not get any council help to restore the dock. So out of his own pocket, he restored the old wharf dock which is now a landmark of Beach Haven. He even established a Boys Sea Scouts and brought in sand from Greenhithe (opposite Beach Haven) to fill the eroding beach beds. He also was donated an old boat which is now a play boat for children that was in a dear need of repairs. He finally repaired the boat and today it stands now as an icon of the area with many visitors hopping on the boat, tugging it by 's safe rope attachment to a strong tree, going out to sea and back to the coast, However, the tide conditions must be observed to be able to use the boat as at low tide the boat is hard to drag to sea due to it large weight on the dry sand. A reclamation, that was also built by him is named after him in honour of his efforts to preserve the wharf and scouts club for future generations. Council has often lacked in pouring any money into Beach Haven for some unknown reason and many community leaders like Larking often question the council.^[1]

Beach Haven has one main shopping area with a variety of shops, takeaways, real estate agencies, op shops, a chocolate business, an accounting firm, video stores including Civic with ASB ATM machine and a Lotto store, pizza firms including Dominoes and a post office.

There is only a couple of preschools and one primary school that serve the area. Also the Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, Mormon and AOG's churches have strong congregation numbers and add to the diverse mix of cultures of mainly, Maori, NZ European, Samoan, Tongan, Karen Burmese and Burundi.

The biggest park in Beach Haven is Shepherd's Park which has excellent walking tracks, as well as soccer, bowling and tennis facilities. It's a big must when visiting Beach Haven to check out Shepherd's Park as it is the main attraction of the area with lovely views of creeks and Waitemata Ocean.

Beach Haven also has got two industrial estates, Wattle Park and Beypark Park. These are bases for many small North Shore firms such as Timberland Timber, Asplundah, Kiwi IceCream and Stationary Warehouse.

For many years, Beach Haven has been known to have high proportions of gang, domestic and drug violence which is due to the poor parenting and early neglect of children living maining in the statehouse neighbourhoods. Beach Haven holds second place in its ranking of North Shore's reigning gang strongholds. Mainly comprised of Bloods and Crips. Not a lot has been done to conserve or prevent these issues within the community due to the council's lack of dedication to working in area like Beach Haven.^[2]

Beach Haven is basically consisted of a poor working class homes subject to a lot of trouble. It wasn't until the late 1990s, Beach Haven finally got a Community Constable which has slowed some problems at a certain degree.

However, due to Beach Haven's vast coastal areas it is an attraction to those who consider less of Beach Haven as a last resort to buy cheap coastal properties within the heavily populated Auckland reigon. This has resulted to a slow increase of the wealth growth with the area.

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