No Roads Through City Mall
Campaign update 27 April 2007

Petition has over 2000 signatures and is growing fast

Thank-you all for your work in gathering names on the City Mall petition. There are 145 completed sheets, a total of 2180 people have signed. This includes 1395 Christchurch voters, 360 “future voters” (under 18) and 425 visitors to Christchurch.

Nearly all the sheets I have are from people who’ve been out on the street, and from City Mall retailers who have the petition on their counters. Only a small number have come through the PO Box. With the sheets all of you are working on still out there, we may have closer to 3000 names.

The aim is to collect another 10,000 by the end of May, so over this next month please take the petition around and get as much support as possible. Ask your family, friends and workmates to sign, and if you’re up for it, spend an hour out on the street… it takes a bit of nerve to get started but once you’re underway it’s great fun.
Yesterday I easily gathered 100 names in a lunch-hour at the Colombo / Cashel St corner. People’s awareness is growing and so is their willingness to sign the petition.

Where to go: City Mall itself is best, but try outside central or suburban libraries, other shopping areas – anywhere there are people!
Who to ask: Approach who you feel comfortable approaching – but don’t pre-judge who will sign, all sorts of people have been supporting the petition. Give them a smile and an opening line…
What to say: “Do you know about the plan to build a road through City Mall?”; “Would you like to sign the No Roads petition?” etc.

Minor changes to the petition form
I’ve amended the form slightly, and have attached the new version. The columns were confusing people so have changed “future voter” to “under 18” and “visitor” to “out of Chch”. I added that the petition will run until mid-June and to get sheets back ASAP. Of course, you can still use the earlier version, the content hasn’t changed.

Misinformation campaign: Council back-pedals to try and blunt protest
Some of you will have seen the full-page ad in The Press 21/4/07 (page D14), which is a direct response to the No Roads Through City Mall campaign. The Council are now talking about “service lanes” (the phrase is repeated 13 times), and labels as WRONG the ideas that Council is putting a “regular road” or “traffic” into City Mall.

This is highly misleading, as the 7-6 Council decision on 14/12/06 clearly approves “the installation of a one-way slow road [in Cashel and High Streets] to permit private vehicle and bicycle access at all times.” See:
www.ccc.govt.nz/council/proceedings/2007/february/cnclcover8th/councilminutes14december2006.pdf

Yes, Council will consult once more before a final decision on use of the road, but their intention is clear, as is their inclination to ignore the public on this issue.

In truth, the slow road was not originally promoted as a service lane, but as a way of bringing more activity, in the form of private vehicles, to the Mall streets.
If controlling delivery vehicles was the main the issue, the plan would be to properly define delivery areas and enforce existing by-laws, leaving the $10.5 million to invest in enhancing the Mall, not destroy its special character by bringing in traffic.
In a classic piece of doublespeak, Council also claims that pedestrians will be safer with a road than in a pedestrian-only mall!
Lots of people have commented that the simulated pictures of the upgrade in the full-page advert look incredibly ugly and boring! (and of course the roads have no vehicles on them…) If you missed it, you can see it here:
www.ccc.govt.nz/CentralCity/Projects/CityMall/CityMallProjectUpdate_2007April.pdf

Feel free to contact me (details below) if you want to discuss anything about the plans or the petition.

So why the push for roads through City Mall?
I’ve been asked this by many people and I’m still at a loss for an adequate answer. This is a hugely unpopular move, so obviously councillors have listened to a small number of people who have an interest in getting a road built. It’s been said that property owner Antony Gough (Hereford Holdings) wants to build a hotel in the area and needs road access for this. Certainly Mr Gough, and his son, have been swift to attack this campaign, misrepresenting the nature of the petition and repeating the Council’s “service lanes” argument in letters to the Press and in the Central City Business Association newsletter (13/4/07).

Whatever Council thinks it is doing, it has become very obvious to me over the last four weeks that the vast majority of shop managers, their staff, their customers and the people of Christchurch are opposed to putting traffic through City Mall. We can only hope that a 10,000-strong petition will help councillors to feel that opposition, and give them a chance to revisit this decision and use ratepayers’ money to really enhance the Mall and the central city as a whole.

I’ll finish by reminding you that the decision to build a road down Cashel and High Streets has already been made. By using the petition to show people’s resistance to this plan, we have a chance of getting the decision reversed.
If we make the effort over the next month, we can succeed.

Thanks for all your work to help save our pedestrian-friendly City Mall!

Paul de Spa

Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board member
and No Roads Through City Mall campaign co-ordinator

ENDS

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