Lions are building a mini-golf course
Visitors to Palmerston North’s Victoria Esplanade will have one more activity to enjoy when amini-golf course opens next year.
The Palmerston North Middle Districts Lions Club has been granted resource consent to build the 18-hole course near the playground and car park, backing on to the hockey turfs.
Lions club member Roy Price said mini-golf would be an attraction for families, where children, parents and grandparents could play together.
The first nine holes of the course would be designed to be fully accessible for people with disabilities and those using wheelchairs as well.
The club first pitched the idea to the city council in 2017, and received approval in principle to go ahead and negotiate a lease of the 1300-square-metre piece of ground and consents to do the work.
Lions would fundraise and project-manage and provide volunteer labour to help build the course, which early estimates suggested could cost more than $200,000.
Price said a lot of volunteer
and council staff time and effort had gone into refining the plans so far.
Concept designs had been through several versions, with the goal of retaining healthy trees, and upgrading the initial entrance shed into a quality building with a ticket office, kiosk and accessible toilet.
The course would be big enough to accommodate up to 80 users at a time, a figure Price thought would be reasonable at peak times, as more than 500,000 people a year visited the Esplanade.
The operation would probably run for similar hours to the Scenic Railway.
Price said it had taken time to get to this point.
‘‘It has been a long process to get to a final plan, but each version has been an improvement.’’
The detailed design was still to be released, but Price said the general theme would be about Manawatu¯, with local streets and landmarks, and dual signage including te reo.
Price said the course would be staffed by the club’s older volunteers, who were looking forward to providing the service to the community.
Charges for a round had not been finalised, but the goal was to keep a family pass for two adults and two children to something like $20 a round.
The green fees would help cover the costs of upkeep, and because Lions was a charitable rather than commercial operation, any money left over would go back into community activities.
Price said the club still had to get building consent for the entry kiosk, but if all went smoothly from now, construction could start in spring, with a target for completion early next year.