High St facelift works wonders

Carterton Paint the Town working group workers help lift the look of their main street. FILE PHOTO

A community project to revamp Carterton's High St shops has sparked interest from potential new tenants.

Paint the Town working group member Gregg Crimp said the response to the recent repainting of five buildings had been "absolutely fantastic".

"Everyone has been incredibly proud of the way we've achieved as a community."

There was a real sense of fellowship among the more than 100 volunteers who gathered to paint the High St shops over two days, Mr Crimp said.

"Everyone really enjoyed themselves.

"It wasn't laborious painting and scraping. Everyone was really energetic."

There had also been some early interest from prospective tenants keen to rent the buildings since the revamp, he said, which was encouraging as the project had aimed to help fill the "little pockets where things are empty".

Volunteers had come from not only Carterton but also Masterton and Greytown to take part in the painting, with teams of volunteers starting work at 8.30am.

Painting finished up at about 2.30pm the next day.

The group's next project would be the Carrington loo "redo" scheduled to be done in late February, Mr Crimp said.

After this there would be discussions on painting another potential one to three High St buildings.

"Now that we've started to get some momentum we want to keep things going."