OPINION: C'mon council, give us more parking

Children and parents flock to Kensington Park every Saturday morning. Photo/Michael Cunningham

I can't figure out why the council has chosen to wage war against the parents who are dedicated enough to take their children to play sport at Kensington Park on Saturday mornings.

It is well known that sport is very good for children, not only on its own merits of keeping children healthier and teaching them valuable social skills, but also because as they get older, children who are involved in sport are less likely to be out causing trouble.

Surely, therefore, it is in Whangarei's best interests, and in fact desirable for the children of our community, to play Saturday morning sport?

Surely the parents who put in the effort to take their children to sport on a Saturday morning should be commended for doing a good thing, not only for their children, but also for the community?

Surely the Whangarei District Council would do everything possible to encourage this activity and make this activity, which is desirable for our community, as easy to do as possible?

Why then is so little parking provided?

The official line is that parents should be prepared to walk, but that doesn't cut it.
Walk from where to begin with?

Every nearby street is either yellow-lined or already lined with cars - and these are parents with young children and babies, and grandparents coming to watch their grandchildren play sport.

What is the council trying to do? Make it so hard that parents don't bother... "I'm sorry son, you can't play soccer because it's too frustrating and time-consuming trying to find a park"?

Remember that these same parents have been working hard all week, as well as taking care of their young children.

Their life is tiring and stressful.

Who can blame them for not wanting more stress?

Choosing less stress is what the medical professionals tell us to do.
I was so excited when I saw the carpark being redone to make way for the new roundabout, thinking that now the council would put in more parks.

But no, I think there are now even fewer parking spaces than before.

Why do we have "pretty gardens" when we need parking (would you take a starving person a bouquet of flowers)?

Why was the sports field end of the carpark not extended further into the unused part of the field to put in more parking spaces down the side of the new driveway.

Why was the carpark not extended all the way to Western Hills Drive with a retaining wall along the road to make the carpark as large as possible? Even the painting of the spaces could have a couple more on the end of the rows, and there is a huge space down the front of the gym with yellow lines instead of parking spaces painted there.

And to top it off, this Saturday morning when I was there, I saw the parking wardens busy doing their thing, ticketing all the cars parked very carefully down the side of the field and in the spaces on the end of the rows where there is so much space still left.

Come on council, please get on the side of the community you are elected to serve instead of fighting against us.

We are all trying to achieve the same thing here - the best for the children in our community.

Change the painting to add as many parking spaces as possible - it's parking that's needed, not a huge space to drive in.

Make the driving lanes one-way if necessary.

Put some gravel in down the side of the new driveway to create some extra parking spaces and put angle parking down both sides of Kensington Rd instead of just parallel, both these could be sealed in time.

Every parking space counts, let's squeeze them in wherever we can.

A new carpark in the long term plan - our population is growing - this problem is growing with it.

And for goodness sake tell the parking wardens to only ticket dangerous parking, give some grace on Saturday mornings.

We, the community of Whangarei, don't need a council that declares war on us when we are doing good for our children and our community, we need a council which is on our side and doing its job of providing the infrastructure which encourages good work in the community.