Mayor keen on car free Esk St; not during winter though
“The position I’m going to take with that is I’m not going to close off Esk St, even though I’d like it to be closed, and there is huge public opinion for it.”
Invercargill mayor Nobby Clark sees merit in closing Esk St to cars in the future.
Although for the moment the plan is to let cars back into Esk St and look after retailers on the north side of the street.
Esk St has been closed to cars as the Invercargill City Council undertakes streetscape work to tie in with the new Invercargill Central development.
It has proved popular with pedestrians, and those mingling in Esk St. Calls are now growing for Esk St (from Kelvin St to Dee St) to continue to remain off-limit to cars. Particular now Invercargill Central has a close to 700-car parking complex, as well as the nearby H&J Smith parking building.
In a Tribune poll (albeit with a sample size of fewer than 100 voters) 91% answered “yes” to continuing to have that portion of Esk St car-free.
“The position I’m going to take with that is I’m not going to close off Esk St, even though I’d like it to be closed, and there is huge public opinion for it.” Clark said.
“The retailers in there have done it really hard while it has been closed. We gave a commitment that it would be 14 months and it has gone to 17 or 18 months.
“They’ve had two Christmas periods with the road work interfering, so we owe it to them to give them some time, certainly over winter when retail goes down a little bit anyway for people to people dropped off and go in.”
“I’m going to stay committed to that.”
However, Clark has discussed with some of the retailers - and he will also put it to council - that next summer a trial took place of restricting cars.
He felt it would be better to have that trial for a period during summer when there was more potential to have activities in the street.
“We could do it for two or three months and run stalls and have people busking and see how that works out.”
“But I’m not going to do it in winter because people won’t dwell there when it’s freezing cold.”
“That’s the position I’m going to take and that’s not to mean everyone will agree with that.”
Clark said he would need to talk with the disability sector about it potentially being closed next summer.