Over to you: Your views and opinions.
OPINION
Best lifestyle event
Congratulations to the Centuria Taranaki Garden Festival winning the Best Lifestyle Event in New Zealand. Attracting people from all over the world brought a much-needed economic boost to the province.
A special thank you to North and South Taranaki councils for supporting the event. If Stratford Council had sponsored it, they might have then focused on the main street. With gutters blocked, weeds and moss in the gardens and up against buildings, even dandelions in flower, which people had not come to see, it was and remains a disgrace. Noted, the weeds were sprayed after the event.
The Glockenspiel, the main tourist promotion for the town, remains an embarrassment. Claiming the lack of its care is because it’s an earthquake risk is a whitewash that would have been better applied to the structure itself. And the wooden hut still languishes in Prospero Place, the broken board adding to the visual carnage, along with the propped-up fence, wild ivy, and an empty excuse for a garden.
Many have voiced their displeasure at the feral cats beneath the Centennial restrooms. Visitors to our lovely toilets had to step over the blocked gutters, around icecream containers of cat food, either covered in flies or floating in rainwater. There has been no response from the council to the many complaints. Where does responsibility begin for the estimated 100 million birds killed each year in New Zealand by cats? Note, even a well-fed cat can still cause a significant impact on its local wildlife.
Shirley Greenhill
Sven Hanne, Stratford District chief executive responds:
We’re just as excited to see the Taranaki Garden Festival win big in the events industry, and while we don’t currently sponsor the event financially, we have always supported this regional event alongside the Fringe Festival, Arts Festival and Sustainable Backyards Trail. This support is through paid advertising opportunities with the festivals and promoting across council channels. The Scarecrow Trail, which has been running seven years now, was also introduced to provide another opportunity for festival-goers to explore the Stratford district while visiting. Our town gardens were maintained in the lead-up to this year’s festival, as we do every year, and we believe our contractors did a great job.
Plans to upgrade the town centre are ongoing and as part of this work the location of the Stratford Business Association’s wooden hut will be considered. The council has no control over the upkeep of privately-owned buildings on Broadway, but is looking to work with private property owners on this as a key focus for its wider Stratford 2035 project.
We agree the Glockenspiel requires a repaint and had originally scheduled this for last year. Due to events outside our control, this work didn’t happen and it has since become apparent that the building will require earthquake strengthening. We are currently awaiting cost estimates for earthquake strengthening and will include this in our upcoming long-term plan. Once we know the extent and timing of the required work, we will assess whether we paint the building as part of the overall upgrade or whether an interim paintjob is needed.
In the last two years, we have received three complaints about cats around the Centennial Rest Rooms. At the same time we’ve done our best to help re-home some of those cats to reduce the population and our contractors do their best to keep that area tidy, removing any unnecessary rubbish. As the district council has no specific role in the management of cats we have discussed the matter with the Taranaki Regional Council. The main problem here is the ongoing dumping of cats and kittens and we ask people to go through the appropriate groups to re-home any unwanted animals, rather than dumping them. This would greatly help to reduce the stray cat population across Taranaki.
The easiest way for people to raise their concerns regarding any of the above matters is to contact us. Please do so by phoning 06 765 6099, emailing StratfordDC@Stratford.govt.nz or by making a quick report via the free Antenno App.
Letter about council’s response
R Lilley had asked several pertinent questions regarding the process the council followed in determining its transport plan. Several of these were not answered by Stratford District Council’s chief executive. I, along with many other interested parties, await the sequel to his initial response.
Stuart Greenhill
Council response: On review of the letter to the editor Stuart is referring to, we believe we have comprehensively answered the questions raised by Mr Lilley. We also share details of the project publicly on our website Stratford.govt.nz/TransportChoices and encourage people to sign up to email updates by contacting TransportChoices@Stratford.govt.nz
Kids need to stay safe online
This week media have reported on the fact police in Taranaki have contacted schools with regard to warning students about the risks of sharing images online. While I am pleased our police force takes an active role in trying to minimise the harm caused by digital communications such as this, I do feel it’s a sad reflection of our society today that they had to ask the schools to address it, not the parents.
Education begins at home - and perhaps parents should put down their own phones and start paying attention to what their teenagers do on theirs. I am shocked by how many parents allow young children to have a device with internet access and then how few parents ever check what their children and teens are doing online. Please, parents, have a look at your child’s phone and check they are staying safe online. Talk to them and don’t leave it to the police or schools to do your parenting for you.
M Gibson
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