Arrowtown Custodian

Arrowtown’s first dedicated town custodian and gardener is not missing the Auckland traffic.
On the streets of the historic township now for two weeks the “true blue Westie” has no regrets and several extra traffic-free hours a day.

“It used to take me three hours to get to work and that was an hour just getting out of my street if I left at the wrong time,” Queenstown Lakes District Council Arrowtown custodian Tony Lynch said.

Now it’s an easy commute from Queenstown to Arrowtown to get down to the business of making Arrowtown sparkle.
“I reckon it will take me a month to get on top of it, but I will,” Mr Lynch said.

He was up for the challenge. His ‘patch’ included the CBD area, Arrowtown parks and reserves and the cemetery.
A big part of his job was establishing a relationship with the local community and being the council’s eyes and ears.

Mr Lynch was equipped to furnish a ‘request for service’ on the street on any issue from pruning to potholes.
He was looking forward to getting to know a few more of the locals. With his hours of work 6.30am to 2.30pm Tuesday to Saturday it meant he had a good chance each morning to get things cleaned up before people started appearing.
“I’m very approachable, anyone can ask me anything,” he said.

Meanwhile he wasn’t struggling with swapping the motorway for a three wheeler bike and the mellow pace of Arrowtown.

“I mean just look at it, what an amazing place to be,” Mr Lynch said.