Councillors on fact-finding trip to Melbourne

Five Christchurch City councillors will visit Melbourne next week to study central city regeneration. They will also visit Marysville, a town in nearby Yarra Valley which was devastated two years ago in the Victorian bushfires, to look at a community’s recovery from a natural disaster.

The delegation of five councillors – Claudia Reid, Ngaire Button, Sally Buck, Helen Broughton and Yani Johanson – will travel to Australia on 14 June and will spend four days there.

The trip has been made possible thanks to airfares provided by Air New Zealand. The five councillors have chosen to pay for their own expenses, including accommodation and meals.

Councillor Claudia Reid says the trip will offer councillors valuable insight into central city revitalisation and transport planning. The group will talk to some of the city’s leading urban and transport planners.

“Melbourne has successfully revitalised its central city and has a number of urban regeneration projects underway.  It will be good to see how a city with a similar physical format to ours, with a grid pattern and a river running through it, has redeveloped its central city. It’s not about replicating what Melbourne has but instead getting ideas about what it takes to build an attractive and liveable city.”

The group will also be able to witness first-hand how the Marysville community dealt with the aftermath of a major natural disaster.  They will travel to Marysville with the Victoria Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, which was set up by the Commonwealth and Victorian governments in February 2009. The Authority has been working with communities, businesses, charities, local councils and other government departments to help rebuild communities affected by the 2009 bushfires.

 “We will be spending some time seeing how the bushfires affected the town of Marysville and looking at the things that we can learn from its recovery. We’ll be looking at how people cope with trauma generally and the difficulties they may have experienced, “ Councillor Reid says.

Deputy Mayor Ngaire Button says the trip will be of great benefit and she thanked Air New Zealand for its generous contribution. “Melbourne has much to offer us in our future planning as it has had a strong focus on urban regeneration. The people of Marysville suffered a great deal due to the bushfires so it will also be useful for our councillors to see how we may be able to learn from their recovery over the past two years.” 

Last month, another group of councillors travelled to San Francisco on an educational visit.