Te Puke town clean-up on the cards after positive public meeting

Cleaning up the graffiti in Te Puke town centre is one of the goals of EPIC Te Puke.

If a public meeting last week is anything to go by, there is plenty of enthusiasm for revitalising Te Puke town centre.

Called by EPIC Te Puke, the meeting sought ideas on what can be done to brighten and clean up the CBD.

''It went really well. We had a really good turnout of a good cross-section of people and everybody was on the same wavelength,'' says EPIC TE Puke chairwoman Sue Peat.

The contentious plaza - dubbed the helicopter pad - outside Te Puke Jewellers was a focal point for one of the initiatives suggested.

Sue says ideas included a sign people could have their photo taken in front of with #Te Puke on it. The plaza was created as part of the town's refurbishment completed early in 2017 but has been often criticised as being of little use. Its creation resulted in the loss of parking spaces.

''It's about turning it into a positive,'' says Sue. ''It would be great for the town and great for people coming into the town. It's probably one of the things we are going to push for immediately.''

Another urgent item is cleaning up long-standing graffiti in the town centre, with one possibility of doing that as part of a community clean-up day.

''The thinking is we would do it on a Sunday, which is a more logical day for the business owners,'' says Sue.

''We'd like to get as many people as possible from the community involved sweeping down the street, water blasting, cleaning up the buildings and then hopefully source some paint. The landlords are probably as cash-strapped as anyone.''

Another idea is to increase the amount of lighting for trees and pathways.

''We've got that in the middle of the roundabout but not the other trees,'' she says.

''Those were the things that came out of [the meeting], so now we are working on trying to source some funding and man-hours, which lots of people came forward with, and get the community involved as well to give them a sense of pride and ownership.''

Sue says the attendance vindicated the decision to have the meeting.

''It's nice when it comes together and people are as enthusiastic as you are. There are many people out there who are very keen to do it, and passionate about the town, which is really encouraging.

''There were business owners, councillors, community board members, interested people from the community and sports clubs - a good cross-section of people.''