Wilderness of willows and weeds in park
An east Christchurch park has grown into a wilderness of willow seedlings and the community is fed up.
Porritt Park, before the city’s earthquakes a hockey hub and popular walking area bordering the Avon River, has become overgrown with weeds and has turned into an accidental nursery for willow trees.
A lack of maintenance in the area has led to the trees now towering more than 2 metres high.
Betty Chapman, a community co-ordinator for Wainoni Avonside Community Services Trust, works across the road from the park and is upset it has been allowed to get to this point.
‘‘We want to enhance this area, not put it down the gutter.
‘‘People still live here and we still work here. At the end of the day, we are ratepayers.’’
Chapman is a passionate supporter of east Christchurch and has worked hard to keep the residents positive since the earthquakes.
‘‘People say the city council does not care. I am not saying that, but it does add to that feeling. It’s still a nice suburb, Christchurch east, but we need to keep it tidy.’’
She said the Christchurch City Council had done a good job maintaining a section of the park closest to Kerrs Reach, but it had neglected the area close to Wainoni Rd.
Wendy Cooper, who works at Physiotherapy Associates overlooking Porritt Park, said the park was an eyesore and she was getting frustrated at the lack of work to tidy it up.
‘‘It just impacts the feel of the area.’’ People used to walk around the park, but they could not do that any more, and she was also concerned the trees could be a potential fire hazard.
CCC head of parks Andrew Rutledge said the park was under routine maintenance for mowing and weed control, but not all parts of the park were able to be mown due to lateral spreading and earthquake damage. He would ask rangers to check the area referred to by Chapman and Cooper and the council would do its best to tidy up the willow tree seedlings.