The Waipapa/Papanui-Innes Community Board will meet this Friday 14 June at 9am in the in the Charles Upham Room, Papanui RSA, 1 Harewood Road. The meeting is open for the public to attend. The agenda includes: a plan for renewal of the Paddington Reserve play space (along with a summary of community views from the consultation process); an application to the Board’s Discretionary Response Fund; two applications to the Board’s Positive Youth Development Fund; and a report on initiatives and issues within the Community Board area. Click through to read the full agenda: https://christchurch.infocouncil.biz/…/PICB_20190614_AGN_32…
A new Catholic church is set to be built at the St Joseph's Papanui site at the corner of Main North Road & Vagues Road, amalgamating the current Mairehau, Burnside, and Papanui Parishes. This is part of a proposal announced on Sunday by the Bishop of Christchurch. The proposal will be open for feedback from 22 June, with a final decision to be announced in December 2019. Click through for more information: https://ourfaith.chchcatholic.nz/
A proposed Christchurch City Council Marshland, Spencerville & Kainga area speed management plan is open for public feedback until 2 July. Across the area covered by the plan there have been four fatal, 28 serious, 77 minor and 155 non–injury crashes between 2013 and 2017. The plan proposes reduced speed limits and other changes. After the consultation period, the Waipapa/Papanui-Innes Community Board will hold a joint meeting with the Waitai/Coastal-Burwood Community Board to consider feedback and make a recommendation to Council on the plan. Click through for details: https://ccc.govt.nz/…/consultations-an…/haveyoursay/show/244
“We’re working with the Police and NZTA to find ways to make the roads safer in this area. This includes lowering a number of existing 80 km/h and 70 km/h speed limits to 60 km/h.”
Do you live or work in the Redwood area? The next meeting of the Redwood Business & Residents Group is this Tuesday 11 June at 7pm. Click through for more information.
“Redwood residents, we look forward to seeing you next Tuesday 11th June, 7pm at the Christchurch Function Centre. Come and share ideas for growing our community.”
Think Papanui’s curator Simon Britten rounds up stories from the past week:
Last week I discussed Think Papanui’s origins with Jesse Mulligan on RNZ National’s Afternoons programme. Click through for a link to the audio.
The Orbiter bus service now uses bus stops on Cranford Street, and perhaps it’s the increase in patronage in that area that’s prompted the Council to undertake some improvements (pic).
The City Council’s wheelie bin stock-take has been completed. I shared the Council’s article advising that untagged bins will no longer be collected.
Last Friday’s joint Community Board decision on the plan to manage traffic downstream of the Christchurch Northern Corridor was the subject of a Council Newsline article and a number of social media posts. Having attended the meeting I published a recap and some thoughts on what the outcome means.
A progress photo of the expansion of the Papanui Mitre 10 store on the former Sanitarium site came close to taking out top post of the week. Keep an eye out for an upcoming Think Papanui promotion that will be supported by the store.
Full NZ Post services will be available again in Papanui from mid July
Top post was the news that from July the Papanui Council service centre will add bill payment and vehicle transactions to the current postal services available. This fills a gap created by the closure of the Papanui NZ Post branch at the end of January.
I published a reminder that feedback closes soon on the Harewood/Gardiners/Breens intersection proposals. A record-breaking volume of feedback is being submitted by the community.
On the frosty 5th of June there was a big turnout at the Papanui Bush planting and weeding day. I couldn’t stay for long, but was able to pull a few weeds and shoot a brief video of the occasion.
An article in this week’s Nor’West News describes a ‘war of words’ and the walkout of a Board member at the last meeting of the Waipapa/Papanui-Innes Community Board.
I was surprised to learn this week that there haven’t been sufficient nominations for the Papanui High School Board of Trustees to trigger a vote – in previous years I recall a large number of nominees vying for the five positions available. (Voting will have closed at noon today 7 June for those schools holding an election.)
The third in a series of articles on the history of the Papanui Firestone factory was published this week, drawing on the memories of Papanui Ward local Trevor Newton.
Labour-aligned People’s Choice have selected two candidates to contest the Papanui Ward Community Board and Council seats in this year’s election. Nathan McCluskey and Merav Benaia join the three incumbents and me in the race. Nominations open on 19 July and the election date is 12 October.
The Star has reported this week that the Christchurch Northern Corridor’s QEII Drive overpass needs to be deconstructed and then rebuilt, once additional stabilisation work has been carried out
Closing soon:
Remember to have your say on the Harewood/Gardiners/Breens intersection proposals by Monday 10 June.
Coming up:
The Redwood Business & Residents group has its next meeting this Tuesday 11 June at 7pm.
The plan to manage traffic downstream of the Christchurch Northern Corridor will be on the agenda of the 13 June meeting of the full Council. Will the Council follow the recommendations made by the Community Boards? The agenda for the Council meeting will be available on this page, and a live stream of the meeting will be available here.
The Waipapa/Papanui-Innes Community Board will meet next Friday 14 June at 9am. The meeting is open for the public to attend, and once the agenda is published I’ll share highlights on Think Papanui.
Feedback is always welcome on Think Papanui’s content, either on Facebook or Instagram, or directly to me. With warm regards Simon Britten
The partly-constructed QEII Drive overpass is set to be deconstructed and rebuilt from the ground up, following excessive movement in the abutment walls caused by weak ground conditions. Despite the extra work on the multi-million dollar structure, The Star reports that the overall Christchurch Northern Corridor project remains on budget.
This week’s Star newspaper confirms that Nathan McCluskey and Merav Benaia will be People’s Choice candidates in Papanui Ward in the 2019 local elections. These two join the three incumbents (Cr Mike Davidson, Emma Norrish, and John Stringer) as well as Think Papanui’s Simon Britten as candidates in the Ward. It appears that right-leaning Independent Citizens will not be contesting the Community Board or Council seats in Papanui.
Have you received voting papers for this year’s school trustee elections? For most schools, voting closes at noon this Friday 7 June. Think Papanui has been informed that no vote is required for Papanui High School – it appears that nominations didn’t exceed the number of vacancies, which is a turnaround on previous elections. NZ Post has published some advice on returning your vote by post, but at this stage Think Papanui would suggest hand-delivering your voting papers. https://www.nzpost.co.nz/…/how-to-make-sure-your-vote-count…
