seven people were arrested following a brawl<\/a> at a bar on Karangahape Road.<\/p>\nWilliam Keung, the chair of Karangahape Precinct Collective, a recently established group of residents and homeowners on Karangahape Road, said the CRL construction sites had become a magnet for crime.<\/p>\n
“[There’s] drug dealing and drug taking, and general criminal activity,” Keung told RNZ.<\/p>\n
He noted that the area opposite Karanga-a-Hape Station’s Mercury Lane entrance was a go-to spot for drug dealing and prostitution.<\/p>\n
“This is one of New Zealand’s biggest infrastructure investments, we want to see it succeed,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But this type of behaviour, it’s going to impact the station’s actual success.”<\/p>\n
Keung called for authorities to bring the area under control before the CRL opened.<\/p>\n
“We want to see a more collaborative approach between Auckland Transport, Auckland Council, the government, particularly the Minister of Police and Minister of Auckland, to come together and develop a coordinated response to what’s happening up here,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We also want to have more police presence, just to build confidence back among the general public that it’s a safe area.<\/p>\n
“Look, it’s urgent. The City Rail Link’s going to open very soon. It needs to be addressed before the stations open.”<\/p>\n
Police inspector Mark Clayton told RNZ his officers had been patrolling areas around the under-construction train stations.<\/p>\n
“Across May and June, police have also taken part in multi-agency emergency exercises testing real operational scenarios within the new CRL infrastructure,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We understand when events like those that took place on Mercury Lane on Monday night occur, this can make people uneasy.<\/p>\n
Our staff responded quickly to the events that unfolded last night and ultimately we have put two people before the court.”<\/p>\n
Auckland Council compliance manager Adrian Wilson said it was working with police ahead of the CRL’s opening.<\/p>\n
“We are working with Auckland Transport, Police and other key stakeholders to share planned arrangements, strengthen cross-agency coordination and identify any operational risks, gaps or opportunities ahead of the CRL go-live. This will be across all the new CRL stations,” he said in a statement to RNZ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some residents on Auckland’s Karangahape Road fear antisocial behaviour will spoil the City Rail Link’s reputation before it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-525802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}