The gift horse has bolted

has taken over control of the Levin events, its counterpart in Palmerston North is content to let the concept die a natural death. But public reaction to the food truck fizzle-out would suggest there was plenty of life left in the venture.

It would be one thing if street feast events were just one jewel of many in a crown of regular attractions in The Square. But it wasn’t.

And it would be another thing if the city council had let the food trucks go knowing it had an even better venture brewing away that could also draw a crowd of thousands each month. It doesn’t.

The new Palmy Unleashed scheme may prove to be a great success, but it still seems to be at the ideas stage and is not geared toward bringing bustle to the often sleepy Square.

Council planner Keegan Aplinthane curiously said continuing food truck Thursday could get dull and people could lose interest. The same pessimistic forecast could be made for any venture and it seems peculiar for the council to go sour on the concept before it showed signs of waning.

Though the turnout at food truck events after Christmas numbered about 2500 – only half the heady numbers counted in September – this was hardly evidence of it becoming old hat. Plenty of people would have been away on holiday or counting their pennies post Christmas.

If anything, given the number of Food Truck Thursdays cancelled due to dreadful weather, and the ones that went ahead in the cold and still drew long queues, the street feasts had the potential to do even better if given a fair shake.

Mayor Grant Smith is partial to speaking of ‘‘vibrancy’’ when relaying his vision for Palmerston North.

While food truck events are not unique to our region and, yes, some day the fad will fade, right now people love them. They would have again brought vibrancy – through conversation and consumption – to an otherwise quiet weeknight in The Square.

To bid them goodbye with barely a shrug is baffling.