Celebrations for Fitzroy Golf Club
Golfers, non-golfers and everyone in between gathered to celebrate saving New Plymouth’s Fitzroy Golf Club from the threat of development – rounding off almost a year of campaigning with a beer.
But club president Mike Earley warned that although they had won the battle, the war was not yet over.
Yesterday’s celebrations were something that many, including Earley, thought would never come after New Plymouth District Council proposed selling off half of the club’s land for housing.
‘‘We thought it was a done deal,’’ Earley said.
‘‘We thought no matter how
‘‘We thought no matter how hard we fought we’d never beat the council.’’ Fitzroy Golf Club president Mike Earley
hard we fought we’d never beat the council.
‘‘We’re golfers, we’re not politicians.’’
But yesterday afternoon, nine months on from his first meeting with New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom, Earley sat in a clubroom
full of supporters officially celebrating the council’s decision to drop the idea following huge public protest.
Earley used the opportunity to thank everyone for their support and celebrate their biggest win yet.
‘‘We were ecstatic,’’ he said. ‘‘We were relieved, we really were.’’
Earley said he’d learned of the plans last August during a meeting with the mayor.
Every day since then had been like riding a rollercoaster, he added.
‘‘We’ve had so many highs and so many lows.’’
Earley said the club was lucky to end up with a core group of influential people including former New Plymouth mayor David ‘Daisy’ Lean, Taranaki Regional councillor Craig Williamson, lawyer Karen Venables, Taranaki Golf executive officer Nick Northam and Dr Kristian Slack.
Under their guidance, club members and their supporters had held meeting after meeting, handed out pamphlets, created signs and done everything in their power to get the ‘save Fitzroy Golf Club’ message out.
‘‘Everybody was talking about it.’’
The sale of the land, part of the Peringa Park Reserve, was included in the Long Term Plan consultation document which drew more than 4000 public submissions.
Holdom later withdrew his support for the idea and the plan was dropped.
But even now, the fight isn’t over, Earley said.
The Fitzroy Golf Club’s land lease runs out in six years’ time.
‘‘We’ve won the battle, we haven’t won the war,’’ he said.
‘‘Now we have to try fight for our lease.’’