Council's consultation farce

Anyone interested in commenting recently on the City Council's Open Space Strategy would have been disappointed. The response template was essentially a set of leading questions that coerced the reader to endorse the strategy.  There was no space to add any comments in addition to those listed by the planners.  

The only conclusion that can be made is that the Open Space Strategy is yet another City Council initiative that is signed, sealed and delivered before it is put out for the rate paying public to comment on; another example of mere tokenism by the current City Council.

Living in Bromley, the main open spaces are sports grounds, reserves and cemeteries - essential to dilute the industrial and waste-service provision in the Eastern Suburbs.  Those who do not have the benefit of living in this pleasant, quiet, spacious area only a few minutes from the City Centre, wetlands or beach and with splendid views of the Port Hills, mistakenly call it the 'stinklands' or 'dead centre of Christchurch'.  

In my opinion, the City Council has endorsed this error by its lack of reference to Bromley in the Open Space Strategy.  Bromley is hardly mentioned - compared to the huge emphasis on Banks Peninsular.  

The Open Space Strategy is about conserving and linking greenspaces, yet the current proposed development of nearly 2ha of Bromley greenspace - the Rovers Football Club ground - into an overcrowded housing estate goes against this strategy.  

More seriously, if approved it could give precedence to other greenspaces and/or residential land in the area being over-developed and Bromley potentially turned into an overcrowded ghetto of low quality housing set among a dwindling area of greenspace framed only by poorly maintained cemeteries and industrial areas.