Forum and Aginum

Aesthetics are Absent here

"Photo News" wants to put in a spoke for matters aesthetic in relation to our parks and reserves.

We print here a picture taken at the Score Road entrance to Anzac Park. This is one of the most attractive spots in town, but what is wrong with it?

The visitor, moving along Score Road beneath an archway of beautiful silver birch trees, comes to this point, where the vista opens out into the park. What a magnificent entrance! (It must have been bought second-hand from a backblocks farm, surely). Beyond, on the left, is one of the ugliest little buildings in the city, a certain candidate for a merciful screen of shrubbery. And beyond, note the charming reach of the river, completely blocked out by a very scruffy old willow.

Let's hire a good landscape artist for a few days to give our Reserves Department a list of easy ways such as this to make Gisborne more beautiful.

Playground Planned

A hearty pat on the back for the Lions Club, which has undertaken to carry out a segment of the Turbott Plan, namely the full scale children's playground on the vacant reserve in Awapuni Road adjacent to the Churchill Park Motor Camp. At this stage detailed plans are being drawn up for the City Council's approval. There is no doubt in most residents' minds that the implementation of the Turbott Plan could be the "making" of Gisborne, and it is encouraging to see the Lions setting the ball rolling by committing themselves to this project.

Congested Fishing Fleet

The initial local opinion of the Molyneux Report was that it spelled disaster (in large capitals) for Gisborne's port. In some respects, mainly overseas shipping, this regrettably may prove to be true. Coastal shipping, however, could foreseeably increase, as this seems the obvious way to transport our goods to the container ports. For the ever-increasing fishing fleet (there are now 45 vessels operating from the port, with more to come in the future), the report could be a blessing in disguise. At present, berthing space is at a premium (pictured), with little apparent hope of a satisfactory solution even when the new outer basin is completed. Without overseas shipping, the new outer wharves could become the coastal berths, leaving the sheltered inner channel (there would be no more lighters) and basin for the "orphan child", the fishing fleet. After all, it is the second largest in the country, and a valuable primary producer for the district and country.