The move to change Petone's name back to Pito-one has attracted some pushback from locals, with Hutt City Council Mayor Campbell Barry cautioning there was "always going to be disagreement".
On Tuesday, the Hutt City Council voted in support of a proposal to return the area to its original name after iwi groups revealed they wanted to restore the original name of the area.
Speaking on AM on Wednesday, Barry told Ryan Bridge the plan was "around correcting a historic wrong".
"We know that in the later half of the 19th century the name was misspelled when the settlement of Petone happened, we think it was around then.
"It was always named after the Petone pā which was on the Petone foreshore, we think it happened around then, and this is about correcting that spelling.
Even myself growing up in the Hutt, I think the current spelling does lead to a lot of mispronunciation so this is about assisting people with that pronunciation."
When asked if there had been any local dissent, Barry said: "I think there's always going to be disagreement on it, the people I've spoken to think it's the right thing to do. This isn't a name change, this is around correcting a historic wrong around the spelling of that community's name and generally there's been good support.
"There have been some concerns raised around cost and the likes, but there is no legal requirement for local businesses to change their name and things can be replaced over time as you replace signs or do normal renewals as well."
Barry also said there would be no additional cost to ratepayers.
"We wouldn't do anything until the Geographic Board has made its decision - our letter of support was endorsing what two Iwi support trusts have put forward. If they did endorse it we would look in our normal maintenance cycles to mitigate some of that cost."
Watch the video above.
