Bill Dalton

If you believed the headline in Saturday’s Hawkes Bay Today, you would think that Napier City Councillors had been wrong in voting for a partial closure of Emerson Street to vehicles and that they had been overruled by their Boss, Barbara Arnott.

That is a long way from the truth.

Let me acquaint you with the facts.

On the 12th November the Environmental Management Committee resolved to recommend to council that Emerson Street be closed to vehicles on the weekends for a trial period. That committee also resolved to consult with Emerson Street businesses and Napier Inner City Marketing before today’s full council meeting.

I was one who supported that resolution.

Consultation took place on the 1st December (not to mention the deluge of calls councillors received) and the retailers made a very good case for leaving the road open. Graham Bell in particular made a well researched, well thought out, sensible contribution and by the end of the meeting I - and I believe the other councillors who attended that meeting – was convinced that the road should stay open.

I am sure that will be the view taken by council this afternoon.

Napier City council operates under an excellent system called the double debating system. The strength of the system has been demonstrated by the outcome in the Emerson Street closure matter.

Following pressure from some ratepayers the council, at the committee stage, made a recommendation to the full council and that recommendation gave the opportunity for consultation.

That consultation has taken place and the full council will vote today with the knowledge gained during the consultation process. That is simply the system working as it should.

As this is my last radio piece for the year, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Enjoy your families and don’t destroy too many brain cells over the festive season. Keep safe and remember that just as daylight follows the darkness of night, good times will follow the stressful times we are currently experiencing.

Over the last couple of months there have been an enormous number of words spoken regarding Marineland.

Some of the ideas promoted are simply ridiculous and others, whilst having merit, would simply be unaffordable in a town the size of Napier

Everyone is saying that we need a project that has the WOW factor. One political commentator suggests that we need to avoid installing a “least objectionable” or “most incremental” replacement for Marineland – we need a real sizzler.

Well the truth is – if we are going to undertake a commercial development on the Marineland site – it must be affordable. There is simply nothing wrong with settling for a new Ford or Holden if you can’t afford a Bentley – you will still have a good car, Tom.

Many would say that a council should not be involved in such a project – such projects should be left to private enterprise – and frankly I have real sympathy with that view. However, private enterprise would simply not be interested in a project the size of Marineland, just as they were not interested in the aquarium.

Napier needs these drawcards and if private enterprise won’t provide them, then we the humble ratepayers have a responsibility to do so.

We are a tourist town. A large portion of our economy is based around the tourist dollar.

There are plenty of things for adults to do. Pubs, restaurants, bars wineries, golf courses, scenic drives and more – all adult recreation. But what do we offer youngsters – what have we got for families?

Our city beaches are less than average – we lack protected water – if you sail out of the inner harbour your next stop is Chile – we need facilities that attract families to the region.

Management of the council’s own accommodation facility, Kennedy Park, tell us that attendances have dropped since Marineland closed. We are also told that visitors are terribly disappointed to find that Marineland is no longer available to them.

Hopefully, if the Napier City Council can get Marineland up and running in a way that we are all proud of then private enterprise will feel encouraged to follow in behind and provide other facilities to attract the tourist dollar to Napier.

Last night, at the request of a few ratepayers I went and had a look at a problem area in their suburb. Clearly it was a problem to some but not to everyone in the area.

These people lived alongside one of the alleyways that run between parallel streets and they are fed up with the appalling behaviour that goes on in that alleyway. Underage drinking – drugs – offensive language – broken glass – rocks thrown on roofs – it all happens in the alleyway.

They want it closed.

Other residents of the suburb say hang on – “you bought a house next to the alley – if you close the alleyway we will have to walk much further to get to the shops and school and the suburb designer thought it should be there.”

They want it left open.

Of course, since the suburb was designed, things have changed. Because of the problems of bad behaviour in our society, designers no longer put narrow dark alleys in suburbs. They include open grassy areas that encourage people to behave decently, if for no other reason than they can be seen.

The alleyway in question was narrow – poorly lit and not far from a very active bottle store. Evidence of poor behaviour was everywhere. Despite the efforts of the residents, you could see where the bottles had been smashed, the overhanging creeper had been set alight, graffiti had been sprayed down the tin fences and all sorts of things had been smoked.

I’m told that at times syringes are found in the alley and on the neighbour’s front lawns.

Of course 99% of this activity is at night.

The other residents of the suburb say: “We want the alleyway to remain. When we are walking the dog at 3pm it is a nice short-cut between streets. When we go to the shop to buy a few things, we now have less distance to carry things home.”

The “close the alley team” says they will have to walk for an extra one to two minutes.

So there’s no easy answer. You can’t open the alley during the day and close it after dark.

At the end we will have to make a decision which of course is what councillors are paid to do.