Govt funding to improve behaviour in Thorp Bush

July 30th, 2014
by David Armstrong

The Motueka branch of the Tasman Youth Council has received $20,000 in government funding to address negative behaviour occurring in Thorp Bush.

The project, called "Take Back Thorp Bush", is primarily a Community Consultation Project and will not include any effort to change the natural environment of the native bush.

The project is funded by the Ministry of Youth Development and will be undertaken collaboratively with TDC's Reserves and Facilities staff, the Motueka Community Board and Keep Motueka Beautiful.

The Youth Council has been successful in a funding application for a project to address negative behaviour occurring in Thorp Bush.

Concerns have been growing over the past decade about the prevalence of littering and drinking in the playground area, plus the setting of some small fires in the surrounding bush and other destructive activity, mainly by youths.

Some people feel unsafe in the area outside daylight hours and even sometimes during the day. The amount of litter including empty cans of alcohol left each day is disheartening to those who love the special nature of one of the few natural lowland podocarp bushes in the region.

Some members of Keep Motueka Beautiful have expressed concern that the "Take Back Thorp Bush" project would entail removing undergrowth in the bushy areas. TDC says the project's goal is to "make the reserve a safer place for the whole community to use and enjoy. This is about the behaviour currently at the reserve, rather than the natural environment."

The project team will conduct a comprehensive community wide consultation process to identify current problems, and also recommendations of realistic solutions for Council to consider.

The project will also include a series of community celebration events in the reserve over summer period. A final report, along with recommendations and findings, is expected to take a year.

Comment by Mark Wentworth:
[Posted 2 August 2014]

Why are we waiting a year and more money spent on more damn stupid reports. I asked TDC three years ago to cut out the lower dense bush and after much negotiations they attempted on three occasion to come and do it piecemeal cut, as they didn't want to offend anyone who might like to see it safer and opened up.

Also the wee theatre building there got a hiding over many years, and thousands was spend on replacing window panes as the idiots of a night gathered there daily, doing their deals and very little was done by any security people to remove them off the area.

The idiots were known to police, video evidence was given to police and these people identified numerous times, but it was a wet bus ticket response.

Floodlighting was put in at the request of the theatre and by some neighbours in the area, as children going to and from the theatre were approached and hassled at night during rehearsals, people from Woodlands using the track to New World were also annoyed by these young thugs in the area.

The solution is quite clear, put in on a pole, two security cameras, as they have done in many Kaikoura public space and around public toilets, and get treescape in there to open up the bush more.

It doesn't need anymore bloody reports and people sucking funds from the coffers, reduce the clip board mentality at TDC, all the ex university qualified highly paid officials doing numerous trips from TDC officers in separate cars, spending hours looking at each other and wondering off for coffee. Get in and do what is obvious, and get the police to deal with the evidence on hand from the cameras. Likewise put cameras up from money saved from bloody reports at every other place in town where there are issues, the camera are then in place for a very long time and pay for themselves instead of forking out more money from TDC for repairs to building, trees, toilets and carparks.

Cameras identify the idiots, and hopefully the authorities do what they are supposed to, and then the parents kick their kids up the bum for their misbehaviour.

I recently banned a now 22 year old from our business and told him he wasn't welcome ever, that he had not shown respect to the community projects or our people I had been involved in, with his idiot friends, (they did a lot of damage in town), so he was not welcome in my place. If everyone else took a similar stand, then maybe they would realise they bummed out on society. It's a privilege to go to many places in life, so his privilege will never eventuate in my business.

Comment by Linda Woodgate:
[Posted 3 August 2014]

It would be nice if some "placemaking" ideas were involved to offer alternatives. Similair strategy to Nelson toilets idea.

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