Bakery restored to former glory

EAGER: Greg Lang and Robyn Cherry-Campbell ready to give the vacant Midway Takeaways and former Stevens Bakery building a lick of paint. Photo / Lynda Feringa

Makeover aims to fire up a revamp of the town's centre

The old-time glory of a main street Carterton bakery is being recreated in a bid to help spruce, polish and shine the CBD.

Greg Lang and Robyn Cherry-Campbell, co-chairs of Carterton District Business Incorporated, on Thursday led a small corps of volunteers in a repaint of the facade of the former Midway Takeaways building sited across the road from the intersection of High and Holloway streets in the town.

Carterton District Council's Barbara Durbin, who was also at the site, said the two-storey building formerly had been Stevens Bakery downstairs and the Stevens family home upstairs above the business premises.

Volunteers drawn from the Rotary Club of Carterton and the CBDI spent several hours scraping, sanding and painting the facade of the vacant building, which is for sale, in the first phase of a project to revamp the centre of the town and "get some enthusiasm fired up" among business-owners and residents in the town, Mr Lang said.

Members of the Wai Art Group are to fashion large murals of a working bakery that will be hung in the front windows of the shop to create the impression of a bakery inside, he said.

Other elements of the main street rejuvenation project include having a roster of artists in residence in vacant shops in the CBD, he said, along with brightly coloured bench seats that would be wheeled out during business hours.

A book exchange also is planned for the CBD, Mrs Cherry-Campbell said, and a piano on a large trolley that would be decked out in the graffiti art of young taggers.

"There are plans to have a few things popping up and grabbing people's attention," she said.

"Hopefully, what we're doing will encourage business-owners and residents to have pride in our town, we're just giving it a bit of a helping shove in that direction."

Thanks were given to The Milk Churn on the CBDI Facebook page for sponsoring the volunteers with "much-needed coffee to keep us going ... and amazing pizzas" and volunteer Christine Hammond also won praise for her offering of homemade scones. Mrs Durbin also was thanked for treating the volunteers to dinner after their work was completed on Thursday.

"Makes you realise what an amazing town we live in, and how fantastic the sense of community is."