Hagley Park planting

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34085, 24 February 1976, Page 14

Hagley Park planting

Sir, —I would like to inquire through your columns about tree planting on the golf course in Hagley Park. One of the most attractive views in Christchurch is that from Harper Avenue south across the golf links. Some years ago much of the area was planted with young trees which are now beginning to interfere with this vista and give the park a pepper-pot appearance. While we are normally worried about removal of trees and not their establishment, the new planting is totally random and goes against well-established landscape design principles. Trees should complement a view not obliterate or obscure it. I would like to suggest that the Parks and Reserves Department or whoever is responsible for this situation reconsiders its plans and returns to Christchurch quality of the park that was established by the early planners. —Yours, etc., D. I. JACKSON.

February 8, 1976. [The Town Clerk (Mr J. H. Gray) replies: “The trees referred to were planted, mainly by the Hagley Golf Club with the approval of the Reserves Department, in order to help define fairways and to make the course more interesting. While the trees are planted in accordance with the principles of golf course design, it does create some conflict of interest in as much as the view from a portion of Harper Avenue has been temporarily obscured. It must be borne in mind that some of the planting is more or less temporary until the larger trees make more growth and that some of the species planted have not proved to be satisfactory so that there will be some culling of such trees.”]