Planned revamp of Drews Ave, Whanganui could be done this year

There will be $400,000 spent on a makeover of Drews Ave. Photo / Bevan Conley

The $400,000 makeover of Whanganui's Drews Ave will have input from urban designer Craig Pocock.

Most of the money for it comes from the Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) Innovating Streets Fund, which aims to make streets more appealing to pedestrians and cyclists.

Whanganui District Council's Town Centre Regeneration Project manager Ellen Young applied for the funding and envisages painting and pathways on the road and footpath, and seating added.

The street's owners and tenants will take part in a workshop later this month to decide what they want there.

Young hoped Drews Ave can be transformed by this summer and has also applied for funding for Watt St.

The project are part of an ongoing town centre regeneration plan adopted by Whanganui District Council in 2017.

"It's exciting stuff," Young said. "You can hear the voice of the community in it."

This revamp builds on work done by Murray Gilbertson, Bruce Dickson, Craig Mills and many others during an upgrade of eight Victoria Ave blocks that began in the early 1990s.

That work created a really good starting point, Young said.

"It was already beautiful."

Ellen Young is Whanganui District Council's Town Centre Regeneration Strategy project manager. Photo / supplied

The regeneration project has a budget of $100,000 to $200,000 a year - which is flexible and not always spent.

Wall and pavement artwork make the alley beside Whanganui's Embassy 3 Cinemas more exciting for walkers. Photos / supplied

A lot of the projects she's done have been worked with other people.

There is the art work in the alley by Embassy 3 Cinemas, the tree lighting, the pop-up park in Ridgway St in the 2018-19 summer, the Whanganui Walls murals and their lighting, the toilet and conversation station in the Victoria Ave block between Guyton and Ingestre streets, the Intercity bus move to Taupō Quay and Brit Bunkley and Andrea Gardner's Peaceable Kingdom sculptures attached to a Drews Ave wall.

"When I first moved here I saw all of Whanganui's strengths and thought they should be more visible to people who visit. We could make our creative community more visible," she said.