'Media Mow up problems in Square’

Press, 9 August 1985, Page 1

'Media Mow up problems in Square’

Cathedral Square is not the trouble zone it is made out to be, according to a detached youth worker, Ms Ruth Buddicom. She told the committee of inquiry into Cathedral Square yesterday that the news media were blowing up problems in the Square out of all proportion. “The rate of offending in the Square is low although many people who commit crimes in other parts of the city do get caught there,” said Ms Buddicom.

Singling out young people as the main cause of problems in the Square was also unfair. She said that older drunken men were the main source of trouble.

“It is often the young people who are being offended against.”

There was a need for more Government and voluntary social workers to

be available to work with young people, especially at night, said Ms Buddicom. While there was no easy solution to the gang problem behind the cathedral, she said that the youth centre that would be open in September would moderate things and serve as a forum for discussion between groups of young people. Another youth worker, Ms Karin Schaeper, said that the Christchurch City Council should provide free food for unemployed young people on Wednesdays when they were “often broke.”

Young people she represented had also called for the banning of all motor traffic round the Square but wanted to be allowed to ride bicycles across the Square, Ms Schaeper said.

There was a need for a regular police presence in the Square but it should be low-key and older officers should be on the beat, she said. The committee — Mr Ted Tehae, Mrs Katrine Brown, and the former Bishop of Christchurch, the Right Rev. Allan Pyatt — heard nine submissions yesterday. The remaining oral submissions will be heard on August 15 and will be considered with about 50 written submissions before a report is made to the council.

A submission by the Christchurch Transport Board called for the northeast leg (the “Warner’s” leg) of Cathedral Square to be restricted to buses and taxis only, instead of the northwest leg. The area in front of Warner’s would be closed to through traffic but the stretch of road in front of the Government Life building would be open to traffic.

The board’s chairman, Mr Patrick Neary, expressed concern about anti-social behaviour in the north-east-ern corner of the Square and said it would have to be “tidied up” before the board considered siting bus stops there.

He suggested that staff of takeaway bars in the area be given more training and that the owners try to create a better public image.

Any suggestion that buses should be banned from the Square were not realistic and the service would be severely handicapped if the buses were moved, said Mr Neary r . The board also suggested that the council ban all kerbside parking on busy roads during peak hours and called for a wider prohibition of right-hand turns at busy intersections. Mr Alun Wilkie, representing the Christchurch Civic Trust, said the com-

mittee should consider “saturating” the Square with a mixture of uses.

Apartments above offices was the key to getting people back into the city and using it at night, he said.

While this was a longterm strategy more liberal town-planning requirements could encourage more residential use round the Square, Mr Wilkie said. The likely availability of the Government Building at the eastern side of the Square meant it could be used as an art gallery and display for part or all of a collection, he said.

He said such a gallery in the central city would attract a range’ of newer “users.”

As with many of the submissions to the inquiry, the trust has called for an improvement in paving and some form of police presence in the Square.

The trust also called for a restriction on the number of buses that use the Square. Christchurch taxi-drivers are concerned about traffic movement round the Square and called on the committee to ban all but taxis, buses, and service vehicles from the Square.

In its submission to the inquiry the Canterbury branch of the Taxi-Drivers’ Federation suggested that modifications be made to the north-west comer pedestrian crossing so that taxis could leave the rank more easily.

Because pedestrians were often using the crossing some taxis could not leave the rank for quite long periods, said the branch’s secretary, Mr Jack Malone. “The fare-paying passenger gets quite irate too.” He told the committee that taxi-drivers had noticed a deterioration of behaviour in the Square during the last two years and some customers were very scared. Some taxi-drivers had seen cars cutting across the Square in front of the Cathedral late at night, he said.

The managing director of a Gloucester Street hotel, Mr Bruce Bellis, told the inquiry that more activities for people in the Square could have only a limited impact on improving conditions.

“It is more idealistic than anything else,” he said.

Anti-social behaviour could be solved if the police were present to “move those on” who were loitering in the Square, he said. “If they were kept moving they' would go about their legitimate business.’’

The lessee of a budget hotel in the Square, lan Kerr, told the inquiry’ that many of the problems were a result of the provision of welfare services “that exist as a result of moral decay.”

A return to the virtues on which Christchurch was founded could solve the problems, he said.