Last week I lost the vote to get the Council to purchase and protect the historic Aidanfield Farm Buildings.
According to the Council's own report:
"The St John of God (Mount Magdala) Farm buildings in their current form have high regional and moderate national heritage significance and therefore should be considered with the Deans’ farm buildings to be the most significant heritage farm buildings remaining in Christchurch."
This is sad. This is the Council abandoning an important part of our local history and heritage. It constantly amazes me how easily some greedy developers can conduct cultural terrorism by holding heritage buildings hostage. They then demand excessive amounts of money from a public body in order to secure their safety.
Of course if Council had a stronger heritage policy and City Plan then perhaps this would not be so easy to do. It is totally time to enhance the City Plan and provide better mechanisms for saving our heritage. I want my grandchildren to enjoy what makes Christchurch and Canterbury unique. I want them to be able to experience first hand the feelings of seeing and touching our history.
This was the first true test of the new Council's committment to protecting heritage. Unfortunately it did not pass.
According to the Council's own report:
"The St John of God (Mount Magdala) Farm buildings in their current form have high regional and moderate national heritage significance and therefore should be considered with the Deans’ farm buildings to be the most significant heritage farm buildings remaining in Christchurch."
This is sad. This is the Council abandoning an important part of our local history and heritage. It constantly amazes me how easily some greedy developers can conduct cultural terrorism by holding heritage buildings hostage. They then demand excessive amounts of money from a public body in order to secure their safety.
Of course if Council had a stronger heritage policy and City Plan then perhaps this would not be so easy to do. It is totally time to enhance the City Plan and provide better mechanisms for saving our heritage. I want my grandchildren to enjoy what makes Christchurch and Canterbury unique. I want them to be able to experience first hand the feelings of seeing and touching our history.
This was the first true test of the new Council's committment to protecting heritage. Unfortunately it did not pass.
1 comment:
Well written article.
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