Sheep in the council chambers? New plan for old building

Press, 11 February 1981, Page 19

Sheep in the council chambers? New plan for old building

By

JOHN WILSON

One of the problems facing Christchurch today is what to do with the old Municipal Chambers (including the former Civic Theatre) on Manchester Street.

The City Council hopes to find a buyer for the building because it needs the money to help pay for the renovation of the Millers building into which it moved. Those interested in saving the building are hoping that if it is sold, the buyer will convert it •to some new use rather than demolish it. A Christchurch woman, Miss Daphne Crampton, has now come up with an idea for the building’s future. It might not satisfy the council’s requirement that it gets right away the sum it wants to pay other bills, but it should certainly satisfy those who would like to see the building saved by being put to an appropriate new use.

Her idea involves restoring the building to something like its original purpose — it was built in 1900 to house the province’s jubilee exhibition which extolled Canterbury’s “industry and agriculture.” Miss Crampton would like to see the building house a “sheep centre” — a national wool and meat products market

and a museum of sheep, wool, and meat.: , r ,. She does not mean, of course, to turn sheep loose in the Civic Theatre. She sees instead a great variety of different activities in the building — people learning about different aspects of the wool and meat industries through exhibitions, lectures, and in a library; people learning different crafts and skills based on wool and meat; people eating meals in a restau-

rant which features products of Canterbury; people making and selling wool and leather crafts; manufacturers displaying various -sheep-based products. She envisages the centre being a major tourist attraction, also allowing visitors to become familiar with the products of Canterbury farms, perhaps picking up some rudimentary craft skills, and returning to their own countries as potential consumers of such products. Eating food proudly identified as produced in the province in the centre’s restaurant could have a similar effect. In small retail stalls and

craft shops, tourists would have opportunities to buy better quality souvenirs. The centre could also serve as a place in which, to “sell” tourists on different facilities and services — such as holidays on farms — which would give them a closer acquaintance with farming life in New Zealand, However, Miss Crampton does not want her proposed centre for tourists alone. It should also add t’o the city’s cultural

cariety for residents. The city has a hidden asset in its skilled practitioners of various wool crafts, and the centre could be a way in which other people would become aware of the quality of the work being done in Christchurch in this field and provide opportunities for more people to acquire such skills themselves. There could also be opportunities to learn different aspects of mutton and lamb butchery and cooking.

The centre could also provide a badly needed “common ground” for town and country. City folk, children and adults,

could learn how the province’s agricultural raw materials are produced; country folk could see what city folk do with what they produce, and perhaps teach or learn in the wool craft classes. Finally, the centre could provide a promotion and marketing centre for manufacturers and wholesalers of wool and meat products, rather like the building centre, where goods can be displayed to local and possibly overseas buyers. Miss Crampton has drawn up a detailed proposal of how she sees the centre working and has begun canvassing the idea with individuals and organisations she thinks could — or should — be interested. The idea is not quite without precedent in New Zealand and she can point to' the ■ Cattledrome, near Queenstown, and the Agrodrome, near Rotorua, as successful examples of schemes which embody some of her ideas for the old municipal chambers. She has, too, in the Arts Centre, an example of how the centre could be organised — as a non-profit-making trust run by people with administrative and technical expertise and enjoying considerable support from throughout the community.

She is well aware that

the question everyone will ask of the project is: could it pay its way? She is hopeful that a very large number of groups, organisations, and firms will see advantages for themselves in having such a “Sheep Centre” and accordingly pitch in. Among them: Federated Farmers, the Agricultural and Pastoral Association, the Manufacturers’ Association, sheep breed associations, Lincoln College, the Education Department (which could use the centre to give city children an acquaintance with farming and farm-based industries), the Post Office (which could establish a philatelic bureau in the centre and perhaps give sheep some recognition on a stamp issue).

Of the more strictly commercial bodies which she thinks could be persuaded to see some advantage for themselves in having the centre established are the Wool and Meat Boards (it could be promotion money well spent to help the centre get established), stock firms, the meat companies, wool and meat product manufactuers and retailers — everyone who would benefit from the more effective promotion, selling, or spreading of information about, wool, leather, and meat products,