Palmerston North Mayor Grant Smith: Victoria Esplanade gets my golden buzzer

Victoria Esplanade is a finalist for major national recognition at this month's Local Government NZ SuperLocal 23 Awards. Photo / Palmerston North City Council

OPINION

While council and committee meetings are on their annual mid-year recess this month, council business continues as usual.

At the end of the month, our wider focus will be on the Local Government New Zealand 2023 Conference in Christchurch.

Palmerston North hosted this event, involving 78 city and district councils, last year. Over the past few years, we have done well at the prestigious LGNZ Excellence Awards.

Our Green Corridors project won the Environmental Impact Award in 2017 for the long-term native planting programme along the tributary gullies connecting the Tararuas to the Manawatū River.

In 2019 the Festival of Cultures took out the Excellence Award for Social Wellbeing, and in 2021 we were a finalist in the same category for the He Ara Kotahi Bridge and connecting riverside pathways.

Our best awards year was 2018 when we won two categories and shared the Judges’ Choice Award for Performance Excellence and Community Outcomes.

Our Best Practice in Governance, Leadership and Strategy Award that year was for Framing the Big Picture around the development of our 2018-28 Plan.

We also won Best Creative Place for our public art programme – a real feather in our cap that overturned many ill-informed perceptions of the city.

Circumstances last year conspired against the council fronting an entry as hosts, but we’re back this year for the revamped and renamed LGNZ SuperLocal 23 Awards.

Following a five-star Garden of National Significance rating for Victoria Esplanade from the New Zealand Gardens Trust in January, along with other community developments, the Esplanade is a finalist in what is now the SuperCollab Award category.

This is to acknowledge extraordinary teamwork or partnerships resulting in great community benefits and wellbeing.

You may think of our premier park as simply “The Esplanade”, but really it’s an extended recreational and sporting precinct with many distinct parts.

These depend on contributions and collaborations from more than a dozen partnerships including iwi, community, environmental, sporting and commercial connections.

Between He Ara Kotahi Bridge, the Holiday Park and the Lido Aquatic Centre at one end, and the Junior Road Safety Park, Fitzherbert Cricket Grounds, Twin Hockey Turfs and Rose Gardens Croquet at the other, there are all the in-between bits that make our botanical gardens special.

The Esplanade Scenic Railway, CET Wildbase Recovery, world-rated Duguld Mackenzie Rose Gardens and NZ Rose Trial Grounds, Camellia Walk, Peter Black Conservatory, Cherry Blossom Avenue, walking and biking trails, the playground, Lions Mini Golf, RSA paddling pool, Café Esplanade, and the riverside pathway make up an integrated attraction for more than 700,000 visitors each year.

That we have such a gem is a huge tribute to the foresight of our founding borough council who set aside the land as a reserve in 1877 and opened it as the Victoria Esplanade in 1897 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria.

Subsequent councils have enhanced and modified the grounds making it what it is today.

I am extremely proud of the collaborative effort put in by council staff to co-ordinate the upkeep and maintenance of this prized amenity while accommodating ideas and input from the many contributing community organisations.

No matter the outcome of the awards, the widespread enjoyment of the park as part and parcel of Palmy’s intergenerational heritage is reward enough in itself.

It certainly gets my golden buzzer.

Grant Smith is the mayor of Palmerston North.