Community say ‘Yes’ to St John at Mangawhai Park

The local community has given opinion about how it thinks Mangawhai Park should be used in the future.

An open day was held recently to find out where people thought the new St John centre should be sited, and guage support for a number of other initiatives in the Mangawhai Park.

Open day visitors filled out forms, and a questionaire yeilded the following results:

1. The community wanted the park for community use and to be managed by the community.

2. They wanted to enhance the green aspect of the area with intergrated buildings and protect cultural treasures.

3. Support the existing users to continue with their proposed developments.

4. New users of the park, must comply with 1 and 2.

5. Keep volunteer organisations within Mangawhai eg. St John.

Initially a Mangawhai Park steering committee was set up to establish if the community supported the addition of a new St John centre on the site.

The original committee  of chair Jim Wintle, local planner and architect David Wingate, Tony Devanney from St John and John Burt from the Kaipara District Council was increased by one person from the stakeholders within the Mangawhai Park – Mangawhai Golf Club, Mangawhai Bowling Club, Mangawhai Activity Zone, Mangawhai Museum, Walking tracks and the Mangawhai Residents & Ratepayers Association.

Local opinion overwhelming supported the idea of putting the new St John building within the park and the committee has resolved to inform the KDC commisioners of the decision.

The local consultants are meeting over the Christmas break to come up with a total planning package for the park.