12 August 2005

Community garden to be rescued from Bypass destruction!

Help save Kensington Gardens from the Bypass

Local community environmental group Anti-Bypass Action (ABA) have announced a two-day event at the Kensington Gardens on August 27th-28th, to rescue a community garden planted four years ago in protest to the Wellington Inner City Bypass. Friends and residents of the area are being asked to gather and help remove the plants and take them to a new site (to be announced).

Kensington Gardens was created by members of Growing Community and local Te Aro residents on November 17th 2001. Two years later it was nominated for the prestigious Civic Award, losing due to a new clause announced by Mayor Prendergast, requiring projects to be 'permanent'. Three gardens were planted along the Bypass route to bring life back to the area, and act as blockades to the road extension. The first, Tonks Garden, was already partly established by residents of Tonks Avenue and was filled with flourishing native trees and strawberry patches. The third on Buller Street was fairly sparse due to several attempts and a mass police standoff resulting in only a short-lived win for the gardeners due to the sneaky removal of most plants three days later by Transit.

Construction of the Bypass began late last year with both Tonks and Buller Streets' gardens being destroyed. Kensington Street is the last area along the route to be destroyed and residents refuse to lose another garden to the road mad constructors. Transit NZ and Fulton Hogan spokespeople have said that the garden area will be turned into a temporary carpark for construction vehicles during work in that area - despite a huge and barely used site already existing on the opposite side of the road. They claim the area will be returned to a 'landscaped garden' afterwards.

Actions to save the garden will begin on Saturday morning with plants being dug up and bagged by with people camping overnight to protect them. Workshops on topics such as rongoa and earth building, with free entertainment and food is hoped to be provided. The folowing Sunday a wheelbarrow procession will take the plants to their new site (to be announced) for a 'Park Up 4'.

"We've seen enough mindless destruction in this neighbourhood. We're not bowing out, we're rescuing the plants so they will have a safe and permanent home where they can be enjoyed into the future," says ABA member Noma Rhodes. "They may have gotten away with this road but under that road is whenua and in that soil are seeds. The forests will return."

ABA welcomes any other actions people want to organise, as long as they are not offensive or endanger the community. Please contact Anti-bypass Action at aba@enzyme.org.nz or Noma 04 384-7980.

A planning meeting is being held at 5:30pm next Thursday August 18th at 128 Abel Smith Street. Please contact ABA if you wish to attend.

ENDS

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