Don't throw away park, is plea

Rejuvenating Te Puke's run-down Jubilee Park has emerged as the centre-piece of an ambitious alternative to Western Bay council's bid to open up the park to commercial development.
The campaign to mobilise Te Puke public opinion against creating a new town centre on a quarter of the 5.6ha park is about to enter a new phase when Will Pendergrast launches his ``people's-choice' proposal.
Mr Pendergrast, who saved Te Puke's 124-year-old hall in Noth2 Rd, has organised a meeting in Memorial Hall on January 20 to rally locals around a plan to save the park, while still creating a new town centre.
He said the park had reached a derelict state yet no one had advanced the case for turning it into something beautiful: "Every other city in the world would give its eye-teeth to have a park like this on the doorstep of the CBD."
One of the central themes of his proposed blueprint to rejuvenate Te Puke was building a huge dome on the park to house creative and performing arts, sports offices, education, a cafe, and eco exhibits.
Mr Pendergrast said a strong and cohesive social presence in the heart of Te Puke was integral to the economic engine of the CBD, and would become a unique point of difference.
Claims that Fashion Island and Bayfair Shopping Centre posed an economic threat to Te Puke had been exaggerated to scare Te Puke people into hastily selling parkland under the pretence of saving the town from extinction, he said.
"Viable and feasible options exist for the development of Te Puke's town centre without selling off public open space."
He argued that the council's proposal to dispose of Jubilee Park land to commercial and retail interests was not justified by conclusions in Te Puke's ``Way Forward' report published in 2004.
Mr Pendergrast wants to establish a steering group to promote the rejuvenation of the CBD and ensure 12 months of community meetings deliver a clear way forward.
It was the absence of community participation in the council's plan which led to the unexpected groundswell of opposition, he said.
His approach proposed a stay of execution for Jubilee Park so that a "culture of participation" could be established in Te Puke, to come up with a new town-centre plan.
Mr Pendergrast's concept for a town centre partly highlighted what he saw as the real issue in that area _ waste of commercially zoned land in the CBD. He said the huge rear yards of main-street shops meant about two-thirds of the land was effectively wasted.
Strengthening commercial links out to Jubilee Park involved assisting local landowners to develop their CBD properties in conjunction with neighbours _ within an overall vision to create a new town centre.