No Jogs Allowed

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31993, 21 May 1969, Page 14

No Jogs Allowed

Of all the people in search of recreational exercise joggers must be the least demanding of public support or interest. They use their share of public space more briskly than do other pedestrians; but they ask for no more and, on the whole, are a sociable and courteous lot Some reappear in more formal and competitive sports as harriers and football players. Generally they disappear back into jobs behind desks, counters, and benches and their athletic achievements are never heard of. Now they are said to have overstepped the limit of. public tolerance: they have been found in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens and, by a surprising application of a City Council by-law, jogging there is deemed to be “ calculated to offend and annoy the public ”, In fact it probably does no such thing. Perhaps the parks and reserves department of the council has decided it must stop the rot before harrier packs and football training squads sweep through the gardens en masse. In numbers they would, admittedly, annoy people enjoying the calm of the gardens. So it boils down to a problem of where the line should be held. At present the law seems to be too rigorously applied and Cr Skellerup was wise to promise “ a little “ investigation ” when the topic was raised at Monday’s Council meeting.

The joggers, of course, will hit on another trail through the park outside the gardens—and there the department should be drawing another line against motor vehicles, or at least determining how far the restrictions on vehicles are to be relaxed. When the Armagh Street gates to Hagley Park were opened to motorists the idea was that the elderly and infirm would be able to reach the more remote parts of the gardens from cars parked near a footbridge on the north boundary of the gardens. The verge of the track to the bridge was posted with “no-parking” signs. On Saturday afternoons the entire length of the track, not to mention the adjacent football pitch, is now a car park for sportsmen who, happily, are far from infirm. If the council believes that this departure is sound it should remove the signposts. But in doing so it should bear in mind that if parking, in the area is allowed to increase citizens will get as little pleasure from walking in the park as they would from strolling through a second-hand car lot. The effect is already much the same.