Give it time, says former mayor

The finishing touches are being to the viewing platform former mayor Barbara Arnott believes will become a well-visited attraction.

Former Napier mayor Barbara Arnott has some simple advice for people who see the Marine Parade viewing platform as a half-finished job and a waste of ratepayers' money.

"Give it time," Mrs Arnott said before making a point she said she had once made before. "Wait and see."

"I heard the same thing when we started building the concrete walkway out at Park Island - people were calling it the pathway to nowhere."

She said in the long run it became a popular strolling spot for recreational walkers and she predicted the viewing platform would also draw people.

Like Napier City Council CEO Wayne Jack, she stressed it was never designed to be a pier.

It was designed to be something which would cover the city's central stormwater drainage outlet but also double as a spot people could visit to take in an elevated view along the beachfront, out to sea and back to the city. "I think it will draw people out there," she said. "I think people will love it."

Mrs Arnott said while a pier could have been built, it was recognised the cost would have been huge to ratepayers as the heavy easterly storm sea conditions which strike the seafront from time to time would mean it would have needed to be excessively strong. "We've all seen the harshness of those seas at times - they could undermine a pier."

She said people walking the seafront pathway would wander out to get a "different view" of the surroundings and added it would also offer people with restricted movement or in wheelchairs a feel for being on the beach. And when the big storms did arrive people on the platform would be able to lookdown and see the surf crashing by.

The viewing platform has been copping flak on social media and through texts to Hawke's Bay Today, with some describing it as falling short of expectations.

Mrs Arnott reiterated it had never been designed as a full pier - it had been built to cover a stormwater outlet and the opportunity to create a unique viewing platform was the silver lining to that, she said.

Both fishing or swimming from a pier into what was an unpredictable sea would pose safety issues.

"It is a viewing platform and people just have to give it time - I think it will become a real attraction and it adds to the Marine Parade development."