Nelson City Council’s newest project – a shopping centre.

Helen from The Brook

Apparently there are currently 32 empty shops in Central Nelson and the council is having big plans for the Wakefield Quay area. Would it be helpful to the inner city businesses to add a new area for shopping two km down the road? And who should be paying for this? Any thoughts?

The Nelson Mayor has visions of making Nelson’s waterfront something special, I get that. Her previous suggestions were to shift the Elma Turner Library and King Burger to less desirable locations. Do they want to reshape Nelson city for the residents or the catering for tourism? I hope the Mayor understand that people are not just pawns in a chess game.

Below is the initial Letters to the Editor (Nn Mail, 25/09/2017) Dan McGuire wrote that inspired this post:

“Many of us voted for Rachel Reese for mayor the first time because we could see that Aldo Miccio had very expensive spending plans, including a mega-million dollar shopping complex at the site of council owned buildings next to Wakefield Quay. It is therefore concerning that the mayor has apparently decided to proceed with Aldo’s project, despite the fact that there are 32 empty shops in central Nelson.

What is most concerning is that she appears willing to have Nelson ratepayers fund the project. Consultants from Wellington, Sydney, Auckland and elsewhere have been paid by ratepayers to come here and make assessments.

The proper role of council is to create the regulatory regime so that private enterprise can fund such projects. For council to gamble our money on such a project makes no sense. Nelson ratepayers would be swamped by the additional spending on tourism that the current mayor desires. This is because we face huge spending requirements over the next 10 years on essential infrastructure that has been neglected. Council must stick to its core business and stop adding new wish lists unless these are funded by private money.”