Basque Park Reserve

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Formed after the Second World War on waste land. A project for extending Upper Queen Street through to New North Road was floated at one time. Local people objected strongly to a fairly large and tall viaduct bisecting the park and the project was deferred and eventually dropped. In the 1970s community gardens were created by local residents partly as a result of the lack of real maintainence by the Parks & services department of Auckland City Council.

In 2006 a redesign of the park was undertaken resulting in new landscaping and planting with expensive sculptures being installed. Many of the locals regarded this amount of expenditure as unwarrented but were mostly upset by the loss of the community garden spaces.

Without the untidy community garden plots the park is now much more elegant looking but also noticeably less frequented by people.