Paul Fletcher from the Common Ground with trainee Tom Ross.
Paul Fletcher from the Common Ground with trainee Tom Ross.
A year spent "getting on with" Whanganui's town centre regeneration is starting to pay off just in time for summer.
Ellen Young began as Whanganui District Council's town centre regeneration project co-ordinator at the start of 2018, tasked with working on projects to draw people into to the CBD.
Two of them - a permanent Conversation Station and the Common Ground Pop-Up cafe - have recently launched.
Young said the two projects were about offering reasons for people to come into the city while using under-utilised space.
"Town centre regeneration is more than just beautification, you know, it's improving town holistically," she said.
While the Common Ground Pop-Up, which is on Ridgway St opposite The Rutland, has been set up independently of council, Young helped facilitate the project, including the games and activities out front.
The shipping container cafe is a not-for-profit which provides training and work experience for young people with earnings going towards helping youth.
"It's not like council is supporting a business," Young said. "It's supporting a charity that's gong to improve things for our young people who are quite often wandering around our town centre with nothing to do."
Town centre regeneration committee chairwoman and councillor Helen Craig said that is what the goal of the Town Centre Rejuvenation Project was.
Whanganui District Councillor, Helen Craig, getting to know passerby, Mangu Scurr, at the Conversation Station.
"You get an energy going. What you'll find is more people coming into town doing things like this. That's the whole model that we based the town centre regeneration stuff on."
Craig believed it would help rather than hinder other businesses in the area.
Conversation Station
One of Young's first projects earlier this year was to put in a parklet on Victoria Ave near the Guyton St intersection.
To promote that, a video called The Conversation Station was filmed, showing strangers using the parklet getting to know each other by answering questions given to them.
The Conversation Station video got 170,000 views in a few weeks so Young decided to make it permanent.
The permanent station as just been installed and people can use a button to activate the station and get instructions on what to do.
"We had such incredible feedback," Young said.
"It was all about bringing people into that space because it's a really nice space to sit.
"But giving them something to seek out and have community connection and creating a vibe of talking to people - which Whanganui's actually really good at - it's almost showing what kind of people live here."
