Leon "Radar" Batley at work in Ōtorohanga.
Inframax roadman Leon “Radar” Batley celebrated 30 years of maintaining roads at Ōtorohanga, Aotea and Kāwhia, last month.
Tackling a job which must be done rain or shine, and which is generally noticed only when it isn’t done well, wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea.
But Leon sees it as a challenge, aiming to fix anything wrong before it gets reported to the council.
He cleans Maniapoto St from bridge-to-bridge, Monday to Friday, usually also attending to Kāwhia and Aotea on Wednesdays.
The 58-year-old has made the job his own, demonstrating abundant enthusiasm, humour and cheerfulness as he works away. This has won Leon the respect and affection of numerous residents and business-owners across his patch, many of whom give him a friendly wave as he makes his rounds.
Leon patrols the streets, stopping to pick up paper and plastic trash of various kinds and sometimes also broken glass.
“Actually, people are pretty good in my area; there’s less rubbish thrown on the roads than you might imagine.”
He cleans out drainage sumps, ensuring leaves and other debris don’t build-up to cause flooding following heavy rain. He repairs road signs damaged by vehicle crashes and thwarts the efforts of vandals who damage them maliciously, repairing, washing and repainting the signs where necessary.
Leon removes branches and other vegetation which could create a hazard by growing across footpaths and walkways used by pedestrians. And he’s always on the lookout out for potholes.
Depending upon the size, these he usually excavates by removing excess water and gravel, ahead of topping them up with a special roading mix, which is then compacted under his truck tyres.
How did he get such enthusiasm for setting things right?
Leon gives the question some thought for a moment or two and responds that it was most likely instilled in him by his now deceased parents, Iris and Joseph Batley, who always liked things to be neat and tidy.
“Plus, of course, my time at St Joseph’s Catholic School, Te Kūiti, and Francis Douglas, New Plymouth.”
In 1991, Leon began his career with a 13-week garden landscaping course run by Waitomo District Council. After being involved in constructing various reserve and garden areas, he was taken on full-time. He was trained to drive a wide range of machines and eventually asked to help run the old council’s Walker Rd landfill. When the new landfill opened in 2000, Leo got involved in a many of the services there, including sorting recycling and supplying gardening materials to the public.
In 2009, he was transferred to roadworks and then went to work for Inframax in his present role after the company won the contract to maintain Ōtorohanga’s urban and rural roads.
Among his interests, Leon tends a beautifully restored railway cottage on his large quirkily landscaped Te Kūiti section. He maintains a lively interest in what is going on in his community, collects artefacts telling the story of the district’s history and supports the White Ribbon Garden Ramble, which visits many gardens in the district, including his.
Origin Coffee owner Fisher Lee put Leon forward as a Community Champion after observing that he took “such an extraordinary level of pride in his work”.
“I first noticed Leon out and about at about 6am, wiping down all the road signs in town – who does that?
“I’ve also seen him straightening posts when they become loose – he just takes pride in the whole town. It’s easy to go round and complain about the state of this or that, but when it’s clean we don’t tend to acknowledge it. Well, we should.
“To me, Leon’s got such a great attitude. He may have been in his job 30 years, but he seems as enthusiastic today as the day he first started.”
