Young Kapiti Borough points the way on local promotion

Press, 11 May 1979, Page 15

Young Kapiti Borough points the way on local promotion

fine of the country’s newest boroughs may be able to offer advice to some of the oldest — on how to promote and plan growth.

Kapiti Borough Council, just five years old, has combined with the local chamber of commerce and the borough’s nearest neighbour, the Waikanae District Community Council, to push for the development of tourism and light industry in the area. Lots of boroughs and other local bodies do that. But Kapiti impresses because although much of the effort that has gone into the campaign is voluntary the effect is as good, if not better, than a fulltime staff could produce.

For most of its history the area, now dubbed “the Kapiti Coast” for the purCoses of the campaign, has een a string of small coastal holiday and retirefdent villages for residents of nearby Wellington. Outsiders often passed through the area on the main road to Wellington, but few stopped. Wellington was too close and the area, apart from the natural attractions of sand, sea and a climate much better than the capital’s, did little to

attract them. That has changed. In 10 years the small communities have developed from rural, seaside villages to commuter suburbs for Wellingtonians. Motels were built and the area attracted main road travellers who had once passed it by. Wellington’s shortage of family accommodation — as many tired ferry passengers can testify — encouraged more of the same. That kind of growth, however, brought problems that only more growth

By

ROGER MACKEY

could solve. Kapiti now has, like Christchurch, more people than jobs, and schoolleavers often have to travel to Wellington to get good ones. Regular commuters too have found the daily haul to Wellington increasingly expensive and inconvenient, and are agitating for more local employment. With borough status and responsibility for remedying previous neglect in the provision of services such as sewers and water supplies, more permanent residents were needed to help

foot the bills. As Christchurch folk know, the presence of a problem does not always lead to a solution or even a concentrated attempt to find one — at least where the promotion of an area is concerned. With Kapiti, at least in the early stages of the promotion campaign, the situation is quite different. At least six separate communities have united in a drive to increase both tourism and light industry in the area. These goals, if

they are achieved, will create more jobs and more revenue. The base for the promotion of tourism in the area, apart from the natural attractions of fishing, surf, more sun than Wellington, and the wild-life sanctuary of the very beautiful Kapiti island, rests on the efforts of four men. Len Southward is perhaps the most prominent of these and the huge new Southward motor museum is the proof of his effort. When opened later this year, it will hold the

largest collection of cars m New Zealand and Australia, the fruits of Mr Southward’s 25 years of collecting.

Syd Desborough has transformed a run-down dairy farm into an orchard that not only attracts fruit buyers but tourists captivated by the scale of the business and the intricacies of running it. Less tangible at this stage but equal to the other two for sheer imagination is the work of Murray Mitchell and Vic Martin. Their Wonderpack — an amusement fair, wild animal park, and drive-in movie theatre — will have no equal in this country.

Local bodies in the Kapiti area have decided to do what they can to build on these foundations. The campaign began late last month when more than 50 people, mostly representatives of the travel industry, were invited to the area to see what it had to offer and to give their views on how Kapiti can attract more tourists. A similar programme has been organised for

later in the year to promote industrial development. Both ventures have been brought off with volunteer help, some assistance from a public relations firm, and a small budget. The organisers were a little reluctant to talk about costs. $lO,OOO has been mentioned, but they will say only that any money spent was well spent. The local bodies that make up the promotion council, Kapiti and Waikanae, have put most effort, however, into making sure that any growth they do promote can be accommodated. $3.5M has just been spent establishing water supply and sewer systems. More than S7M more is to be spent completing the latter. Although “gun-ho” for growth, those wh,o make up the promotion council are also aware of its dangers. A population target of 50,000 people, including summer residents, is regarded as the most the area can take with comfort. The council has also resisted attempting to enlist what is undoubtedly the

area’s best natural attraction — the wild bird sanctuary of Kapiti Island — into their promotion scheme.

There is a rigid limit on the number of people allowed to visit Kapiti, and the island’s guardian, the Lands and Survey department, has talked of closing it off completely for limited spells to give the birds and the vegetation time to recover from human contact. So far it is to the promotion council’s credit that the temptation to try and interfere with these arrangements has been resisted. It will be one of the tests of the area and the various plans for growth that the island sanctuary and its future remain untouched by the same considerations.