Hi
I love old buildings and cool designs too and have many favorites around Chch,
and miss many that are now gone, but it is always good to see them looked after
and restored - in fact it is not so long ago i was helping with upkeep of
heritage buildings at Ferrymead heritage park and did some 'not too bad'
paint-jobs in my opinion!
However i am contributing here to remind people our heritage is not just
buildings, and that civic pride is also about environment and community spirit.
Sorry to bore those of you who have read my litter updates and whines
ad-nasuasm, but read on friends, it might be your local park that just got an
early spring cleans
for those of you that dont know, yours truely has for some time now endeavoured
to restore, protect and preserve a lot of GREENSPACE heritage around
christchurch,(found to be neglected by the CCC, contractors and the public)-
by simply clearing the litter, often backlogged in shrubbery, trampled into the
ground on paths, on river banks and in playgrounds or around playing fields,
and similarly attending to broken glass and the backlog of smashed jars in the
cities old cemetaries.
I can testify to tens of thousands of supermarket bags filled over the past 10
years or so (conservative average of 3 or 4 bags full per day, not just
christchurch). and bread bags filled with glass.
[Did you know I was doing that all the time you were Mayor, Garry?]
When amped up this sort of 'human vaccuum cleaning' is very effective and can
get entire greenbelts and even suburbs 'spick and span', but it is not
apparently welcomed at all by the poweres that be. (possibly some political
discrimination it would seem?)
anyway, this morning for example i did a regular patrol between woodham road,
bromley park including the buckleys rd median strip, and scratched around to
fill a bag of historic glass in the adjacent linwood cemetary (it is getting
hard to find now).
But in the past week or so i have also been through the following parks across
the city, filling two or three (supermarket) bags of rubbish in each:
***Bromley Park/Linwood cemetary
***Denton Park (twice, first times i ever visited this park) Backlog of litter
in south edge grasses and korimiko shrubs.
***Fendalton Park (tidyish, but not the carpark stream area). I have tided this
park once or twice before, years ago.
***Abberly Park (first time i ever cleared there. Roadside bad. Lovely park!))
***Church Square (the road around it never tidied by any locals it seems, one
front lawn particularly bad by busstop. Have tidied round here several times
over past 10 years)
***Richmond Park (stanmore road area quite tidy these days thanks to unknown
person(s) but this park had backlog of litter in shubbery by seats and
bottletops lollypop sticks glass etc there by bin. Typical CCC/contractor
scenerio/community.
***Beverly Park. lots of small stuff to be found trampled into dirt esp. by
carparks(gilby st entrance). i used to live in Gilby st 20 year ago!
***Linwood Park (and alwins rd median). I have now done about 10 missions all
up through this key problem area, 8 tidy ups this year. It is getting better
all time. End of randolf st. did not require attention this time
***Cuthberts Green. i usually do a tidy around here and visit the supershed
where i often do some tidying too.It could be bad now(?) because there was a
softball tournement. Note: shuttle drive gutters never cleared unless i do
them. also note there is a council and city care depot there and a massive
public reserve.
***Bradford park. a regular tidy up here. sometimes brace myself and take on
Angus st stream landscaping (favorite KFC dump zone) as well. Milton St.
***Barrington park. the playground and gardens used to be a shocker. i still
seem to be the only tidier of the shrubbery adjacent to mall.
Sometimes i will do two parks in a day. sometimes i will spend hours on a
munter mission (eg earlier in the year with those long summer evenings and
thirsty trees also neglected by council), leaving dog snoozing in the car.
One thing about parks when stimpy and the litter hunter visit, is we often
attend too to the surrounding road environment - as this is where ningnongs
park and drop their litter. If park environs are clean-slated and kept tidy,
the neighbourhood is empowered to 'lift their game' and this does happen - and
it spreads so i dont have to worry about that neighbourhood too much anymore -
Somerfield is good example.
so there are postives but i am worried what happens when the fellow is not
around to plug the hole in the sea wall. I do find nowdays many householders
and busnesses and some dairies (some of which where i lobbied the proprietor a
bit) maintain outside their premises, and street sweepers do main roads it
seems,
but who does that leave to clear the non-road part of the 'commons'?
Almost invariably i find it is still Beanman's job, as in all of the parks
described above I am filling the gap in the council's heritage provision (or
blimmin' well trying to!).
I dont mind tidying parks - its not taxing i get exercise and its become a bit
of a wee hobby and i get a buzz from it (etc etc), but my concern is that
litter only seems to vanish, when i do the vanishing of it....
What happens in the long term when i move down to my place in Southland?
do you want the litter creeping back into your playgrounds etc? Will the
backlog come back to the disturbing level it was at 10 years ago? (eg the
rubbish strewn Ashgrove section best improved riverbank award)
Dont neglect this aspect of our heritage, Chch. There are 350,000 people in
this city most of whom presumably hate litter too in their parks and footpaths
(including bottle tops, lollypop sticks, those annoying silver dring bottle
seal, cigarette butts, broken glass plastic spoons...) so it would be nice for
me to find evidence of intellient life once in a while (yay for Stanmore road
person) One lady said to me the other day 'i dont blame you i often feel like
picking up the bloody stuff myself'
People who claim to care about our heritage need to walk the walk a bit if
there really is any credibility to this being a civic society and 'garden city'
where people are friendly and the streets are safe.
(from my point of view, the council have been terribly unfriendly)
Anyway, beanman has not tackled all of chch yet with his social-environment
project, but i am getting there and every other day i mangage to crack a little
new territory (another neglected corner where rubbish attracts rubbish). One
park i have never seen but have noticed on map is Wainoni Park. for all i know
this may be in exemplary condition! watch this space.
please dont take Beanman for granted, he wont be forever here tidying your
parks and neighbourhoods and trying to teach your children well.
regards
kevin
Rest of post
--- On Sun, 8/3/08, graeme stanley <<email obscured>> wrote:
> From: graeme stanley <<email obscured>>
> Subject: Re: [Canterbury Issues] Loss of Heritage
> To: "Canterbury Public Issues Forum"
<canterburyissues@forums.e-democracy.org>
> Date: Sunday, August 3, 2008, 9:15 AM
> Hi Garry,I hope you are right about that City Mall owners
> will get behind the upgrade and do up there buildings
> comparable with Lower High St Precinct. I was not at first
> convinced City Mall was worth this upgrade but after
> reflection yesterday & having done at least six heritage
> walk,n, talks along the Lower High Street Precinct into
> which I include the beauty of our Catholic Cathedral as a
> backdrop and the other historic buildings like Community of
> the Sacred Name amd Nurse Maude HQ. I often now sincerely
> thank quietly the vision of The Dave Hendersons and The
> Heritage Trusts Excelsior Hotel and other buildings and
> other individual developers/retailers like McKenzie
> &Willis, who together with Dave Hinman & the
> Heritage Solutions Team at C.C.C. (not sure of there name.)
> transformed High st. Thanks also to the courage of
> developers like Lisle Hood & Paul Bradley etc as they
> toil away behind in the Lichfield &TuamSts Poplar Lanes
> area working magic on these interesting b
> uildings.Most of us are too busy rushing from A--B to
> appreciate what a wonderfulinner city we have.There are
> many interesting individual heritage buildings in the inner
> city I watch concerned about including "Highlight House
> on the Cashel /Manchestersts cnr. Have a look up above the
> verandahs there at Thomas Lamberts decorative
> detailing& quality of design Another Cashel Street shop
> & building not many are aware of is Stewart Dawsons
> Building on City Mall cnr High St& Cashel ST. Its
> magnificent glass window viewed by standing in its doorway
> a little gem as is window on upper floor.A landmark building
> for me has always been Fishers Building on High St/Hereford
> St cnr. I have appreciated walking up the old staircase to
> talk to Lawrie Hanafin in his corner office occasionally I
> shop more frequently in the city now at REAL GROOVY in
> S.O.L. &Tuam St. or to eat at Mitchelinis in Poplar
> Lanes or a drink at Twisted Hop but more latterly Pomeroys
> Historic Hotel. Cheers, Graeme.
>
>
> graeme stanley
> ST ALBANS, CHRISTCHURCH
> Info about graeme stanley:
> http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/graemestanley
>
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> http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/2HHtdxXjOoLJzU2Mm9DMng
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