There are two themes in this month’s column: rates and getting around our community.
In late April or May, the Council will issue a consultation document describing a possible proposed rate increase for 2023/24. The proposed rate increase may be greater than anticipated in the 2021 Long Term Plan. The consultation document will explain why. It will also describe where the Council proposes spending those additional funds, and it seeks your views. As I write this, the document is not finished, so I do not know exactly what it will say. My message is that there will be many opportunities for people to have their say. Please do so.
I recently read some research describing a survey by the Gallop Organisation, to find out what people most wanted in the places they lived. The three things people most wanted were (in reverse order below):
- an attractive place, which includes having access to parks and green spaces.
- a place that is welcoming.
- a place where friends can meet and get together.
For people who do not like social survey results, can I recommend a quick read of Isaiah 65, verses 17 onwards. Here the Lord describes what his/her ideal place to live in looks like. It will have low infant mortality, people will be “glad and rejoice”, they will live to a good age, and live in houses with vineyards and fruit trees around them.
Martinborough is lucky to have a lot of green spaces. It has many places where people can meet and gather.
But it is one thing to have great facilities. It is another thing to have easy access to them. On Monday (17th) I took part in the Martinborough Mobility Challenge. This was organised by the Martinborough Community Board and involved Ted Colenso, who needs a mobility scooter to get around, taking me on a tour. I was using a mobility scooter lent to me by Kitchener’s Café after about 30 seconds instructions from Bruce.
Things started well, while we were on the smooth footpath outside the Waihinga centre. But soon Ted was taking me towards New York Street, then along to Regent Street. Very quickly I was beginning to think this was not such a good idea. Here are some of the things I learnt. It is not always possible to get a mobility scooter onto a footpath and you must ride along the edge of the road. If the camber of the road is too steep, riding a mobility scooter becomes a very scary thing to do.
Some footpaths are in such a poor state that it’s not possible to ride on them because of gravel, stones, cracks in the road and a degraded surface. We had to use the road. Some footpaths have tree roots growing across them making it very difficult to move. Some hedges grow so far out into the street that a mobility scooter cannot use the footpath if any other user is there. And lastly, some people dig up their driveway. I guess in order to lay pipes from the street to their house. They should provide some way of getting from one side of the interrupted driveway to the other side. But no-one seems to bother with this.
I was grateful to Ted for the tour and his lesson in navigating with a mobility scooter. But I feel sorry for him and other users, thinking about the problems he faces just to get around the town. I am convinced it would not take much, or cost much, to fix the problems Ted showed me. The Council will need to be more thoughtful with road cambers and other ‘zones’ where scooters transition from one surface to another. Some homeowners will need to understand that their hedges encroaching on public footpaths, create a real hazard for people like Ted.
