Recap: the week ending 12 April

Think Papanui’s curator Simon Britten rounds up stories covered over the past week:

The Neighbourhood Links project has started a casual drop-in ‘Coffee Mondays’ at the refurbished rooms by the Redwood Library. If you’re in the Northcote/Redwood area feel free to call in on Mondays between 12pm-1pm.

The Nor’West news carried the headline ‘Papanui traffic report stalled’ this week. Both the Community Board and also Board Member John Stringer commented further on Think Papanui’s Facebook post. Back in February I touched on this in an article on urban design in the Papanui area.

The closing date for Strengthening Communities funding applications has been extended by the Council. I added a link to information on the kinds of grants made by our Community Board on the Facebook post about this.

The Waipapa/Papanui-Innes Community Board met this morning 12 April. I’ll put up a post next week about decisions made at the meeting. In the meantime you can find a summary of the agenda on Think Papanui.

Marian College have shared some more details of their plans to move to the former Foodstuffs warehouse site in Papanui. This was Think Papanui’s top post of the week.

On Tuesday evening this week, despite being double-booked, I made it to the Papanui High School consultation meeting on proposed changes to Christchurch high school zones, and also to the first meeting of a Redwood Business and Residents Association (or ‘Group’ – it’s not a formal association at this stage).

Another closing date moved back by the City Council is the closing date for Community Service Award nominations. If there’s a community volunteer in the area that you think should be recognised, you have until 26 April to submit your nomination.

I shared a Facebook post from Sara Templeton – Councillor for Heathcote, on the topic of the Waimakariri District Council’s Draft Annual Plan. The Council is considering bringing forward funding to investigate Park’n’Ride facilities – something that could benefit Christchurch residents who will be impacted by traffic changes due to the Christchurch Northern Corridor project.

Langdons Road between Oakland Street and the new retail development (Northlink) is due to be resealed in the coming week – watch out for traffic disruption in the area. Judging from Facebook comments, some residents aren’t happy with the state of the road or the time taken to deliver a solution.

Just this morning I published a story on the Momorangi Crescent playground. A former resident is urging the Community Board to upgrade it. What really interests me is how current residents find the state of the facilities, and I’ll be looking out for comments with interest.

Papanui Ward is the area that Think Papanui focuses on, and this covers much more than the suburb of the same name. Today I’ve shared a link to an article I recently published on this topic.

Closing soon: submissions on the Council’s draft plan for Christchurch Northern Corridor traffic mitigation close on Monday 15 April.

Coming up: the NZ Transport Agency has provided me with a 2011 report on the project we now know as the Christchurch Northern Corridor. It appears to be the closest the NZTA had to a business case or cost/benefit analysis prior to commissioning the $240m project. I’ll have a read through the document and write an article in the coming days.

Feedback is always welcome on Think Papanui’s content, either on Facebook or Instagram, or directly to me.

With warm regards
Simon Britten