The Power of Passion
 
 
We were privileged to hear from our guest speaker Trevor Lord, accompanied by his wife Jill, about the journey they experienced in resurrecting the Sydney Street Power Station in Wellington.
 
What a transformation.
 
In addition to operating 3 companies that specialise in managing electrical and power operations, Trevor also works in business and training while also enjoying his passions with flying and more recently pipe organ restoration.
 
In addition to many other projects, Trevor has also spent 35 years restoring their family home. 
 
His talk focused in particular on the challenges of restoring what originally opened as the Mangaho Power Station in 1924 which was designed to fit into a suburban community and included a roof garden. 
 
 
90 years on while most of the interior was mostly intact the building was showing its age and in 2013 there was a cry to look into restoring it.  Trevor went up to take a look and thanks to cheque made out to the Queen the project was underway.
 
In 2015 the media became interested but not long after in 2016 the building’s status shifted from restoration to preservation which included having large buildings standing either side of it.
 
So Trevor and his group went on the attack in the Court system to defend their substation! In the end they won by using the Heritage Building rules in the Resource Management Act so once again the substation was secure for a while.
 
Alas yet another development proposal came along with the eventual remedy included investigating seeing if it was feasible to more the building sideways.  Luckily this scheme vanished as fast as it arrived.
 
To this day the building, which has been significantly restored in what appears to be a labour of love, remains in place and is currently running as an Air B&B.
 
We thanked Trevor for his presentation and the hope that the fantastic restoration project his team have been actively involved with will ensure its survival and the enjoyment viewing it brings for many years to come.