Kensington Park is crammed with players and spectators of all shapes and sizes each Saturday in winter.
Kensington Park is crammed with players and spectators of all shapes and sizes each Saturday in winter.
For one day of the week, roughly half of the year, Whangarei's Kensington Park and its surrounds are packed with kids playing sport.
It's a wonderful sight - kids exercising their hearts, lungs and legs - and not just their thumbs on a gaming machine.
Long may it continue. Inthis digital age we need to get out of the house, communicating and interacting in person.
What isn't healthy though is the angst that the game "find a parking space" causes parents and fans. The referee - the Whangarei District Council - has been dishing out penalties in the form of parking tickets.
This is annoying ratepayers, because they perceive that the council should be trying to resolve the problem.
Rightly or wrongly, people are really annoyed because they perceive that nearby roadworks - which locals are well and truly sick of - reduced the number of Kensington Park car park spaces. The poor old ref is getting a hammering from the crowd. And there's probably not a lot the ref can do, other than agree to be more lenient.
Perhaps, before people start hurling things at the ref, the proceeds of parking tickets issued every Saturday morning could be donated to kids' sport.
And rather than looking for more parking spaces, we start to look for alternative venues. Kensington Park is a victim of its own success.
There is nowhere to build a new car park, not without eating into the park itself. And why would we - the spaces would only get used one day a year for half of the year.
Maybe free Saturday morning buses for parents and players could help.
Or spread games out across the day, like hockey does, and take the pressure off the morning period. Or find new grounds for the kids to play at, and take the pressure of the park.
There is Pohe Island, or nearby schools who might be happy to act as the venue for kids sport.
Building more car parks isn't the solution - life has changed, it's time to adapt with some form of proactive change, rather then reactive ticketing.
