A sharp-minded polymath of passionate conviction, Associate Professor Michael Pritchard, who died aged 82 on August 18, 2020, helped forge urban planning education in Aotearoa New Zealand. He was also in the vanguard of environmental activism long before sustainability and localism gained orthodoxy. Indeed, Mike (as he was familiarly known), was a nonconformist visionary with a talent for creatively identifying and tackling civic issues, current and future, along with an ability for quietly and persuasively finding common ground amongst discordant voices. His imprint on the University of Auckland, the Planning profession, and the community is substantial.

Mike joined the University in 1965, the second ‘bright young’ Diploma of Town Planning graduate recruited by Professor Robert Kennedy to staff his nascent department. Born in England in 1938, Mike spent his childhood shielded from the Blitz in Wales. Schooling at Colet Court and St Pauls, independent schools in London, did not instil a reverence for private education but, undoubtedly, the importance of knowledge and obligation to pass it on. He returned to Wales, gaining a Bachelor of Science in geology at the University of Aberystwyth, before migrating to New Zealand in 1961 to join the Ministry of Works, which in turn sponsored his University of Auckland enrolment. He went on to become Head of the Planning Department (1990–1993) and, later, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Property, Planning and Fine Arts (1996–2004) and was highly respected for his academic leadership and generous mentorship, with an open door, no matter how menial or exasperating the person or the problem.

For generations of students, Mike was a compelling and quirky teacher. An affable storyteller who dated the decline of the planet from the Domesday Book, and found Planning relevance in the works of John Bunyan and Lewis Carroll, in permaculture and veggie co-ops – a prowess recognised by the Planning Institute for distinguished services to planning education in 1993, and the University of Auckland Distinguished Teaching Excellence Award in 1994. Conservation, regeneration and collaborative (dis)organisation were among his scholarly interests, and action research his preference. Sabbaticals were spent exploring the Spanish Mondragon Co-operatives or restoring Ironbridge’s revolutionary industrial housing models in Shropshire, England.

Spinning knowledge into practice was an abiding Planning principle. Along with colleague Jim Dart, Mike established the New Zealand Planning Institute’s professional journal, Town Planning Quarterly, serving as its Technical Editor. Meanwhile, writing a regular column in the Auckland Star to sharpen the stature of the discipline and profession and make digestible associated legislation. 

Quick to recognise the historic character of Parnell, Mike joined the St Georges Bay Planning Association in his early Auckland years, to resist the encroachment of port and industry into the townscape. Moving to Devonport, he recast the sleepy naval backwater an eco-cultural asset. Through the Ngataringa Bay Society and Devonport Planning Association, Mike mobilised public opposition to a proposal to reclaim 59 hectares of seabed for a meretricious residential marina project. Elected to the Borough Council in 1971 with one ally, taxi-driver Jim Titchener, he systematically dragooned like-minded residents, some with architecture anduniversity connections, into standing in 1974 and effected a political takeover challenging the developer, Harbour Board, Regional Council and Government. All testament to his superb networking qualities and ability to identify needed skills.

Serving as Deputy Mayor (1977–1980), he spearheaded a case fought on environmental grounds that led to the withdrawal of the scheme, but not without cost to the ratepayer. He turned his attention to pioneering methods of local fundraising, including rubbish recycling, standing down from the Council in 1983 on repayment of the debt. Under his watch, Devonport stood for independent open government and was the first local authority to declare itself nuclear-free. From 1990–2000, as chair of the New Zealand Ecolabelling Trust, he inaugurated the Environmental Choice label, internationally acclaimed for excellence in product assessment.

Characteristically attired in Levi’s and white shirt – with a blue suit shared with another councillor for formal occasions – Mike travelled by cycle and ferry. A life-long fascination with cooperative arrangements included not only fruit and vegetables but the establishment of the Devonport Works arts and crafts co-op and a farming joint venture on the Kaipara, in tandem with raising seven children. Always a champion of heritage, he spent his retirement years protecting coastal reserves and working on the restoration and museumification of Fort Takapuna (with school and university students). A final flourish was a significant exhibition commemorating the 1917 battle of Passchendaele, and creation of the New Zealand Memorial and Garden in Zonnebeke, Belgium.