Whanganui Deputy Mayor calls on council to address state of central city park

Whanganui Deputy Mayor Helen Craig has called on the council to address the "really shabby" state of Pukenamu Queen's Park. Photo / Mike Tweed

Whanganui Deputy Mayor Helen Craig has called on the council to address the “shabby” state of Pukenamu Queen’s Park, home to the newly reopened Te Whare o Rehua Sarjeant Gallery.

At a Whanganui District Council operations and performance committee this week, Craig said she encouraged elected members to go and see the park for themselves.

“There’s a dead palm tree, a light pole that’s been pushed over, and a huge and growing area of mud that cars are now constantly parking on.”

Craig said it was the city’s premier park and currently looked “really shabby”.

“If we don’t have the budget and the resourcing, as a councillor, I want to know about it.”

Council chief infrastructure officer Lance Kennedy said “nothing is simple” at the park.

“Everything on the Sarjeant Gallery side of the road has already had archeological assessments done,” he said.

“Areas on the other side of the road, near the (Handspan) peace fountain (sculpture), for example, are different.

“If we want to dig a hole and put in a bollard, we need to, believe it or not, get archeologists to do an assessment before we can do any of that work.”

Helen Craig says elected members should have a look at the damage for themselves. Photo / NZME

He said sealing the area around the peace sculpture with concrete blocks would make the area look “prison-like”.

“We are looking at what we can do within existing budgets and existing delegations.”

Council chief executive David Langford told the Chronicle there had been a slight reduction in the council’s premier parks maintenance budget, but that was not the root cause of the issues at Pukenamu.

General maintenance work at the park was in contractors’ workplans and would get taken care of “pretty quickly”, including replacing the lamppost, he said.

However, that would not stop “boy racers coming in and doing donuts on the grass”.

“It is unacceptable and disappointing,” Langford said.

“There is other poor behaviour as well.

“Literally, I’ve just walked out of the Sarjeant building, and people are parked on the grass, even though there are empty parking spaces.”

In 2023, a $425,000 landscaping design project for the entire park was scaled back, meaning only areas surrounding the gallery had a detailed design.

Langford said landscaping would be staged to manage the cost to ratepayers.

“We only funded the first stage – around the entrance to the gallery – so it would look top-notch for the opening.

“The rest of the master plan will be future projects if the community is prepared to fund the work.

“Those projects can be considered at the next long-term plan [LTP].”

The next LTP comes into effect in 2027.

Kennedy said the current situation was “an indictment on some of these ratbags” driving cars over the area.

Council managers had visited the park twice this week and there had been cars parked in the mud both times, with plenty of official parking available, he said.

The Chronicle visited the park on a weekday around 1pm.

Two cars had driven over a kerb and were parked on the grass near the Handspan peace sculpture.

There were multiple official parking spaces available.

The Sarjeant opened in November last year, with a final cost estimated to be around $76 million.

David Langford says landscaping at the park is staged to manage the costs to ratepayers. Photo / NZME

Pukenamu Queen’s Park also features the Davis and Alexander libraries, with the Whanganui War Memorial Centre below it.

Last December, a preliminary council report said parking provided in the upper and lower areas of the park would satisfy “calculated daily peak demand”, even with the reopened gallery.

Speaking to the Chronicle, Craig said she was at the park recently, around 5pm, and watched a car-full of people drive up the grass bank from the peace sculpture to do “wheelies” next to the park’s memorial cenotaph.

“Hoons, what else would you call them, are seeking out that spot on an increasing basis,” she said.

“The Sarjeant looks amazing, and we are attracting a lot of visitors, so it’s not a good look.”

She said at the very least, signage should go up.

“We need to lift our game a bit before it gets worse. It’s not a lot of money.”

Langford said the council would try to manage the situation, but major changes to the park required extra funding.

He did not want to create a “bollard farm”.

“We’ll look at alternatives, like bringing in planter boxes to deter people from parking where they shouldn’t.

“They will still look nice and keep with the park and gallery settings.

“Once they’ve done their job, they can be reused and put somewhere else. That’s good value for money.”

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.