Making Chch attractive

Press, 29 May 1989, Page 18

Making Chch attractive

By

JEANNETTE HOOGERWERF,

chief executive officer, New Brighton District Business Association

At Christchurch’s Going for Goals forum at Queen’s Birthday week-end the focus will be on the city’s strengths and potential and people’s ideas about how these could be developed to shape Christchurch’s future. The organisers want ideas from the community. In this series of articles “The Press” is giving a range of invited Canterbury citizens the chance to give their ideas and goals for the city and the region.

Christchurch is one of the most beautiful cities in New Zealand, a city that has got a lot to offer both to the citizens of Christchurch, the New Zealand tourist and overseas visitors.

I would like to see that Christchurch becomes a destination rather than a gateway to other places in the. South Island. In order to keep tourists in Christchurch we have to promote our city to visitors. The Canterbury Promotion Council is working very hard to do just that but it cannot do it alone. Christchurch needs help from all its citizens. We have to become proud‘Christchurch citizens, helping to keep our city clean and safe, day and night, and make its many nationalities become one people living in one big city. I would like to see a much greater effort from the Christchurch City Council, especially in the eastern suburbs. It concerns me that the Christchurch City Council at the moment is not capable of looking after the suburbs and I wonder what is going to happen when the Christchurch City Council is serving the whole of metropolitan. Christchurch.

It is to this end that I would like to see that all the community groups in the eastern suburbs amalgamate and become one strong Christchurch East Community Committee. That would mean one strong voice that must be heard by the City Council. f' f

The Eastern Suburbs have a lot of potential and should be the jewel of the city. With its lovely beaches, Q.E. .II Park, Cowles Stadium, Ferrymead, Rawhiti Domain, South Brighton Domain, golf courses, Thompson Park, Porrit Park and a large shopping centre, it’s all here. The time is right for the Eastern Suburbs to develop into a major tourist attraction with development on the foreshore with a complex that would be unique in New Zealand; hotel and conference facilities where visitors could view our miles of beaches; a casino that would bring revenue to the city; a pier that could house small stalls selling t 'ice-cream and candy floss; an.amusement arcade with recreational facilities and an aquarium for educational purposes. F