Police tagging

I blipped another of these police tags back in July. It's gone now, someone went to a lot of trouble to paint it out and match the battered wall it was on.

Today I had a meeting after work that took me around the inner city cordon. I had time to kill so took the scenic route. I took a path deep in Hagley Park beside the river. The beautiful Botanic Gardens on one side rambling woodlands on the other.

As I biked past the remains of the Arts Centre (old university) part of me wants it gone. Let's consider designs and buildings that fit with our landscape and geology, not stone buildings based on the other side of the world.

You certainly notice more gaps and wonky boarded up buildings on Salsbury St from a bike. Into Colombo St to the corner of Peterborough St where I spotted this and blipped it. View large to read what the unhappy taggers have to say. It was disorientating with many buildings gone or boarded up but I could figure it out and picture what used to be there.

On down to Manchester St and the corner of Kilmore St where St Lukes used to stand. On the far side of the land workmen were inside the old vicarage tossing bricks out. "That's progress, that's positive" I heard myself say.

What a pity the Historic Places Trust wouldn't let us remove the old brick chimneys. But no, even though they were damaged and unsafe we weren't allowed to. Now the damage is so much more substantial. Probing questions need to be asked of the Historic Places Trust and their obsession with mindless detail, yet scant regard for how safe buildings were.

Back onto Peterborough St and past my friend's house. She is one of only a few left living here. Some sections are cleared, other places are boarded up, others look crooked and some are in the process of being demolished.

What an opportunity we have. Our city is different, it isn't what it was. There can be something new, with creativity and care we can have something suited to our land and geology. It will come from the people, not corporations, the council or politicians. It's the people who will make it.