$5M cablecar complex for Port Hills?

Press, 4 December 1985, Page 1

$5M cablecar complex for Port Hills?

By

DAVID WILSON

A $5 million gondola cablecar complex on the Port Hills is being proposed by a group of Christchurch businessmen.

The complex would include: • A tourist gondola from the Heathcote tunnel portal to the top of Mount Cavendish (Crown land administered by the Christchurch City Council), or to a point 50 metres below the summit (towards the Bridle Path) on private land, both of which would include enclosed viewing facilities and a restaurant. • Two artificial double bobsleigh runs on property facing the Lyttelton Road tunnel buildings. • An artificial ski matting slope 150 metres long beside the toboggan run as a pre-ski season learn-to-ski area. The project is being promoted by Mr Peter Yeoman, . consulting engineer and chairman of the Mount Hutt Ski and Alpine Tourist Company (operators of the Mount Hutt ski area) and

Mr Richard Paynter, joint managing director of the Paynter Holdings Group, with the support of Project Consultants, a group of Christchurch professional people. Messrs Yeoman and Paynter presented details of the project to the Christchurch City Council’s parks and recreation committee yesterday. These included sketch drawings of the gondola facilities by Sir Miles Warren. , “We recognise that there is still much work in terms of planning approvals to be achieved, but our hope is that this new tourist facility will be operational by October, 1987, said Mr Yeoman. “Christchurch is a major tourist gateway and just as other tourist centres have developed additional facilities to attract and hold visitors, Christchurch has to look seriously at expanding

its own tourist attractions,” he said. “With an international standard tourist facility such as the one we are promoting we believe there is a realistic opportunity not only to attract more visitors to Christchurch but to hold them here longer,” Mr Yeoman said. Visitors to Christchurch stay in the city for 1.8 days on average and if that could be increased to two days the extra spin-off to the local tourism industry would be worth about $3 million and another 300 downstream jobs would be created. “There is a tourist growth going on and there is a danger it will pass us by if we don’t do something,” said Mr Yeoman. “The Commonwealth Games was the last major stimulus for the tourist industry here, and it is time we had something else to provide impetus.” Mr Paynter said it was important that any development such as the gondola cablecar project be completed in a way which was environmentally acceptable. “We have spent almost two years investigating and planning what we believe will be an eminently acceptable and exciting addition to

the facilities which Christchurch can offer visitors,” he said.

“We also believe it will be a facility of which Cantabrians can be proud.” He envisaged the complex would employ between 25 and 30 people when fully operational.

Mr Yeoman first developed the concept of a tourist gondola on the Port Hills in 1974, but it was not until the project was taken up by Project Consultants in the period from 1983 that realistic development investigation has been able to be completed. During the last two years the group has investigated land options, technical alternatives, and planning procedures. Since the middle of this year Messrs Yeoman and Paynter have successfully negotiated contracts to buy land requirements and have taken on the responsibility of promoting the project and obtaining planning consents for a staged development. A company would be formed to develop and own the complex and the possibility of shares in the project being offered to the people of Christchurch was being considered, Mr Yeoman said.