Inn at the park proposal not dead yet

ALL may not be lost for plans to built an old English style inn in Masterton's Queen Elizabeth Park, with Mayor Bob Francis he would be "more than happy" for the proposition to be put back on the council table.
Commenting in the wake of claims by three of his councillors that the dismissal of a proposal put forward by businessman Doug Catley to build the multi-million dollar inn had been hasty and unprofessional, Mr Francis said those councillors should "check their memories".
He said councillors Brent Goodwin, Rod McKenzie and Derek Daniell had all been at a meeting with other councillors that had turned aside the plan, and he recalled no-one had strongly pushed the cause of allowing the building to go ahead.
Mr Francis said the true course of events for the plan had been that in the early days Mr Catley had made it a "very firm condition" that if the inn were built there would have to be vehicle access to it, from Dixon Street.
This would have meant some sort of interference with the oval road now leading to the maintenance depot ? by widening or some other means ? so cars could safely use it.
Councillors were less than happy with that and as a result Mr Francis said he had agreed to go back to Mr Catley to talk that sticking point though.
The upshot of those discussions was that Mr Catley had "softened" the road idea as long as better access to the inn site could be guaranteed from the Park Avenue entrance.
This was discussed by the new council, elected late last year, at a meeting closed to the press and public and a decision made to seek advice from council's consultants Boffa Miskell.
"The consultants eventually came back to us with something in writing and the information was shared with all councillors including Brent Goodwin, Rod McKenzie and Derek Daniell."
"They had the chance at that stage to indicate their strong support for the proposal but I couldn't detect any of that support."
Mr Francis said it was likely a formal vote was not taken to turn down the inn proposal and-although a full report was not written up by Boffa Miskell - a one-page letter from the consultant's landscape architect Sarah Poff was tabled.
In this Ms Poff said the proposal did not align itself with the park's management plan and was considered " inappropriate."
The scale of the inn was too big for the site and it appeared to be "hard up against the Pioneer Cemetery and the cricket oval."
She said the cemetery would become "physically and visually cut off" from the park and there were problems with car parking
Ms Poff said her advice to council had been partly gleaned by overlaying Mr Catley's proposal on to an aerial photograph of the park to judge the impact.
Asked to comment on whether he would be happy to see his inn proposal go back to council for a second consideration Mr Catley said he would simply say he firmly believed the building of the inn would be good for Masterton and would like to think Masterton District councillors were wise enough to make good decisions.
He said he personally has a high regard for Mr Francis.
"I think he is a go-getter."