Hall was also told of another sign outside the livestock waste dump station at Matawhero Saleyards telling people not to dump human waste there and directing them to Hall’s Awapuni Rd site and the former Mobil Portside Service Station (now Waitomo Portside) in Wainui Rd.
But it was the Awapuni Rd sign that was the major issue.
Hall said a crew of “five guys in three trucks” turned up on Friday and started to put up the sign.
The crew were told: “The dump station is not there. There’s a sign over here that says ‘dump station closed’, it’s been filled in, it’s not here.”
It fell on deaf ears, according to Hall. One of the workers said it had to go up, so it did.
After they had left, a bit of Kiwi ingenuity was employed to avoid potential confusion and disruption.
“We had an old black singlet that was in a rubbish pile and we got up there and covered up the sign,” Hall said.
The Gisborne Herald contacted Gisborne District Council and was told the signs were not its doing.
The mystery was solved when the Gisborne Herald contacted NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA).
The signs are on Awapuni Rd, which is part of State Highway 35 for which NZTA is responsible.
An NZTA spokesman confirmed in an email that the signs had come from the agency.
“These signs (Awapuni Rd and Grey St) were installed by the NZ Transport Agency contractor,” he said.
“Unfortunately, our records didn’t show the site had been disestablished and as the signs were reported as missing, they were replaced.
A black singlet was used to cover a new sign erroneously pointing to a now-closed motorhome dump station site on Awapuni Rd.
“After speaking with the business owner involved, we acknowledge this dump station no longer exists, apologised for any inconvenience caused and instructed our contractor to remove these signs as quickly as possible [on Tuesday].
“We’re sorry for the error and are working to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
The spokesman said the cost to establish and remove the signage would be part of NZTA’s allocated maintenance and operations budget for the contractor.
The Matawhero signage was “not in the NZTA database and there is no record of any works being undertaken by [the] NZ Transport Agency contractor, these will be removed as soon as possible”.
The dump station at Hallrite Plumbing and Gasfitting on Awapuni Rd, Gisborne has been closed since January this year.
When the Gisborne Herald contacted Hall to tell him the signs were to be removed, he went outside to have a look at the sign across the road, which had previously been hidden by the black singlet.
“I think they’ve taken them down. The one out on our road straight out from our driveway is gone – the post and all the rest of it. I’m happy that at least the transport agency themselves, they’ve obviously taken it down or had someone do it.”