Parklands Avenue (Bell Block)

In August 1967, an article in the Taranaki Daily News announced there was going to be a new housing subdivision in Bell Block. Fifty acres of existing farmland would be developed into two hundred sections.

The farm was previously owned by Ellen Smeaton. She had plans drawn up to subdivide the area, then put her land up for auction early in 1967. A company called Parklands Development purchased it. The company was owned by Lloyd Hedgman and Brian Harris.

Hedgman, born in Stratford in 1927, was a builder living in Whitford. Harris was an accountant, based in east-Auckland. The two men had known each other for some time and it’s likely they formed the company specifically to do the residential development of what they immediately called the ‘Smeaton Block’.

A major road, linking the Bell Block town centre to the new development, was required. Soon after purchasing the land, Hedgman and Harris proposed that the road be named Parklands Drive. There was concern the name was too easily confused with Brooklands Park Drive in Pukekura Park so, in September 1967, the name was changed to Parklands Avenue.

Several other proposed street names in the new residential development would be changed a few years later but the name Parklands Avenue remained, permanently recognising the company that developed the area.

After some delays, the development of the ‘Smeaton Block’ started in earnest in 1973.   Quite how much ‘hands on’ involvement Hedgman and Harris had is uncertain today. They don’t appear to have lived in Taranaki during these years.

By the 1980s, Lloyd Hedgman was farming near Rotorua. In retirement, he lived near Waihi Beach and died in 2003. Brian Harris continued to work as an accountant in Auckland, retiring to Howick and dying in 2021.

In more recent years, Parklands Avenue has been extended to the west, with several new streets coming off it. The area attracts many families at Christmas time, keen to see the attractive lighting displays put on by local residents. 

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.

Related plan:

Taranaki DP2486 Sheet 1 Harbour Board Reserve (1907), ICS Pre 300,000 Cadastral Plan Index (Imaged by LINZ).