Backing for park, not pond
The Nelson City Council has abandoned a plan to concrete the base of the Modellers Pond in favour of filling it in and creating a park.
The latest twist in the decadeslong saga of the weed-infested pond played out over more than five hours at a sports and recreation committee meeting on Thursday.
There was confusion, recriminations and a resignation but councillors voted 9-2 to progress the alternative plan, which will turn the Ta¯hunanui pond into a community park. That proposal will now go out for preliminary design work before being put to public consultation.
In a public forum before the meeting, the pond’s backers were vehemently opposed to the park plan, dismayed at their lack of involvement in the process and the U-turn away from the concreting option which the council approved investigating last year.
Nigel Gibbs, speaking on behalf of the Nelson Society of Modellers, said he was ‘‘dismayed’’ to have to come back to the council on the issue, and ‘‘that money continues to bleed on this item’’.
‘‘The first I knew that this was coming back to the council table was when a reporter approached me for comment a fortnight ago,’’ he said.
‘‘The surprise presentation of an architectural concept plan for the Modellers Pond area again demonstrates a lack of respect and recognition to the working group, which we are a member of, has been treated to.’’
The working group has involved a number of interested parties trying to find a solution to the long-running issue.
Councillors Gaile Noonan and Yvonne Bowater were the only two to vote against the decision.
While Bowater acknowledged the contributions from iwi on the new plan and its potential environmental benefits, she felt that ‘‘going straight to option seven (the park plan) without doing anything on option two (the concreting option) is not respecting the previous processes’’.
In August last year, the council voted to progress preliminary design work for the concreting of the base of the pond, referred to as ‘‘option two’’, pending iwi consultation. The decision was contentious, passing by eight votes to five.
At the public forum on Thursday, a member of the Modellers Pond working group, John Gilbertson of the Ta¯ hunanui Business Association, resigned.
‘‘The report you should be seeing is the one requested in August last year,’’ he said.
‘‘I can’t believe you’re being asked to throw out the work and the scrutiny that has led to option two,’’ he said.
He believed iwi had not been informed of the pond’s role in stormwater management.
However, council chief executive Pat Dougherty said the pond ‘‘doesn’t make any difference’’ to the functioning of the Centennial Pump station regarding flooding in the area.