Six-year-old writes to council begging it to clean pond in much-loved park

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

From reporter Tina Law:

A decaying pond in a city park has been transformed after a 6-year-old girl wrote to the council begging them to clean it up.

Every time Sophie Marston visited Holliss​ Reserve in south Christchurch she would get upset about the state of the pond.

It was full of mud, leaves and rubbish, and she felt sorry for the ducks and eels.


She felt so strongly about it that she decided to write a letter to the Christchurch City Council.

In the letter, which she wrote in July, Sophie asked the council to come and clean the pond up so the ducks could have somewhere clean to live.


“Whenever I go to Holliss Ave Park and I look at the pond I feel sorry for the ducks and eels because it is full of mud, leaves and rubbish.

“Please could you clean the pond up and so the ducks can have somewhere clean to live.”

In early December, about five months after receiving the letter, the council cleaned out the pond.

Sophie, who is now 7, said she was happy the ducks had a nice clean home to live in again.


Her father Tim Marston​ said Sophie was quite proud of herself.

They were at the park on Saturday and overheard a family talking about how good the pond was looking.

“I said to Sophie that ‘even a little 7-year-old can make something really cool happen’.”

Council community parks manager Al Hardy said the pond had accumulated excessive amounts of organic matter which had detracted from the pond’s visual quality.


“We found the pond otherwise healthy, with roughly 600 fish (including eels) being re-homed to the Heathcote River, as part of the clean-up of the pond.”

He said the council received Sophie’s letter at the same time the team was working to resolve the issue.


“It’s great to see young people taking an interest in community parks and we want to thank her for highlighting this issue to us.”


Cashmere ward councillor Tim Scandrett said the state of the pond had been an issue for a while, with a number of people commenting to him about it.

He had previously raised it with staff and it was likely to be an ongoing problem.

He said it was wonderful that Sophie was concerned enough to do something about it and that she had the family support to do it.