Maketū’s Shane Beech feels he has served his apprenticeship and is now ready – albeit belatedly – to step up.

Beech spent four terms on the Maketū Community Board, three as its chairman, before stepping down in 2022 and declaring his intention to stand for a seat on the Western Bay of Plenty District Council in that year’s local body elections.

However, health issues forced his hand and he had to withdraw – but only after ballot papers had been printed.

While he had made public his intention to withdraw, he still received 1688 votes, which would have been enough to give him a seat on the district council.

He said at the time that support had “blown him away”.

He also declared his intention to stand again in 2025, and, true to his word, he was the first to submit his nomination for the ward when nominations opened on July 4.

“It was just unfortunate that health took me out of the game. I’m hopefully back on track with that and I want to get back, give it 110% and see what I can do to help the district,” he said.

Community passion

Beech was confident that health-wise, he was in as good a shape as he can be and he wanted to use his experience for the benefit of the district.

“It’s in my blood, it’s something I’m passionate about and I’m going to put my name back in the ring. Health-wise I feel as well as I could possibly be.”

A man well-known for his community spirit and volunteer work as well as being the owner of Maketū Beachside Café and Restaurant and Maketū Beach Holiday Park, Beech had to cut down his involvement in other roles after his health scare.

“It’s been a bit of a blessing. I’ve sold one of my businesses [the café and restaurant] recently, which has freed up a lot of my time, and I stepped back a bit from the fire brigade – now I’m their secretary treasurer. Coastguard, I’m still fully involved with and enjoying the role.

“But it’s given me time to reflect, time to heal, to get back into a better frame of mind and … it’s given me time and energy to put my hand back into the politics side.”

Apprenticeship

Beech said he felt his time on the community board was an apprenticeship.

There are no specific areas he was looking to influence.

“It’s probably a bit of everything – I’m not coming in with any agenda, I’m open to all sorts of things that are happening and are possibly going to happen – everything from rates to resource consent, to compliance, helping small businesses, infrastructure and spending.”

He said the support he received at the last election gave him optimism this time around.

“It shows there’s a lot of people that are behind me, and I feel almost obliged to put my name in again. I appreciate those people and hopefully I‘ll get a lot more to back me and put me in.”

While there were four vacancies in the Maketū -Te Puke ward at the 2022 election, a representation review has resulted in that being cut to three for 2025.

Nominations close today. At the time of punblicatoon, Shane Beech, Laura Rae, John Bowden, Grant Dally, Manvir Singh Mann and Andy Wichers had put their names forward.

Voting takes place between September 9 and October 11