Railway car park pressure

Palmerston North’s popular Esplanade Scenic Railway wants city officials to improve car parking for its customers, especially as the planned new cycle and pedestrian bridge might place greater demands on its use.

Newly-elected president Grant Taylor said the volunteer group was doing all it could to increase patronage and that created a greater need for parking.

At the same time, the city council is eyeing the car park near the Park Rd entrance to Victoria Esplanade as a place for people to park while using the proposed He Ara Kotahi bridge near the end of Ruha St on Dittmer Drive.

Taylor said that suggestion was a concern for the group. ‘‘That car park is already very heavily used. We will be making submissions that the car parking needs improving. At the moment it is just a big tarseal area.’’

The city council did have $26,000 in its long-term plan for the Park Rd entrance and parking reconfiguration at Victoria Esplanade. The draft annual budget about to go out for public consultation proposes putting that off until 2018/19.

At the resource management hearing on applications for consent to build the bridge, the suggestion was made that people could park at the railway car park, and make their way down what was described as a ‘‘challenging’’ pathway to the riverside pathway and the bridge.

Taylor said the railway was raising money to build a new station house near its new railway shed and that was part of the reason it was trying to attract more customers. It managed to increase patronage by 2 per cent in the past year, carrying 65,399 people, and planned to build numbers further this year with its Easter and night excursions.

The goal was to have the new building finished and ready for use for the railway’s 50th anniversary celebrations on November 1 2019. ‘‘Hopefully the council will see the investment we are making in the Esplanade and will respond with investment of its own,’’ Taylor said.

It was encouraging that the railway’s relationship with the council was so much stronger than it was two years ago, he said. At that stage the railway was embarking on its $230,000 railway shed development and Taylor was nonplussed by a $16,000 development contributions bill from city hall.

He went public with his complaint about the bill at a mayoral by-election debate. Subsequently elected as mayor, Grant Smith took up the cause.

The bill was eventually softened with a $5000 subsidy from a fund the council set up to help community groups pay development contributions. And at the railway’s annual meeting on Tuesday, Smith became the group’s patron. He replaced former patron and former deputy mayor John Hornblow, who stepped aside.

Taylor said the appointment signalled a much stronger and better relationship between the railway, which won the 2015 regional supreme Trustpower community award, and the council and council officers.

Taylor said development contributions would not be an issue with the station house building, as it would be smaller than 100 square metres, below the threshold for the policy to kick in. Another development for the group would be the construction of a carriage for carrying disabled passengers in wheelchairs.