By 
By now you may have seen some new ideas to reclaim Hawkes Bay as the kids capital.
Editorial: Bold plan offers hope for Parade
Bold new plan for Marine Parade
You can see the detail here:
And here is a pdf to download Marine Parade Big Picture (6.8MB)
This idea started a few months ago after chatting to Chris Tremain and others. Quite a few times parents from out of town had said how much their kids nagged them to come to skatezone. With my own kids I'd been thinking about wouldn't it be great to have more things to do with them in the weekend.
When we thought about it, we form a relationship with the Bay at an early age. Whether it be Fantasyland, Marineland, or even the slot car set that used to be at old Hive arcade (remember that?), kids used to like coming to the Bay.
Returning to the Bay a few years ago the Marine Parade does look a little tired.
After many conversations the idea was taken shape. Chris connected me to Mayor Barbara and I was invited to pitch the idea to the Napier councillors. Amazingly they seemed to get quite excited and got it. We formed a small team to develop the idea a bit more. Over the course of the next month or so the ideas were refined into the communications put out this week. I was really impressed by how engaged the council was and also up front on the issues, sensitivities and funding.
So we'd love to know what you think. Good or bad, lets hear your comments or other ideas.
08:17, 28.09.2012
I think its a marvellous set of ideas Rod. I went on a three week holiday as a child (from the bright lights of Invercargill) and the only thing I can still remember is coming to Napier and enjoying all of the activities on the waterfront. The more money we can bring into the bay in the form of tourism dollars would be a virtuous cricle, and the more activities to keep our local youth engaged the better as well. Just look at how popular the skating rink seems to have been and how much more life it has bought to the waterfront.
15:45, 28.09.2012
It’s been such a long time coming, but the suggested attractions would certainly transform the place for the better. If only we could get golden sand, it would be perfect!
10:35, 01.10.2012
Kudos to the group who put this forward and to them who are making this into a reality.
Seems that the Council has done a 180 with regards to the development of the Parade.. I guess it took someone with the social status of Mr Drury to convince them that it would be a good idea.
Being generic rate payers, we had to move heaven and earth when we were trying to access to the pathway for our rental Segways about 2 years ago. And I know that a certain bike rental place along the parade has has the same major headaches also trying to convince the Council to bring some spice back to the Parade.
Now that the kiddies are taken care of.. What are we going to do for the young folk that leave HB to study, go on their big OE and want to come back to the bay? (http://www.fruitbowl.co.nz/lifestyle/how-can-we-stop-young-talent-from-leaving-hawkes-bay/)