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Warkworth art gallery owner Rick Urban is urging retailers and businesses to ramp up their opposition to Watercare’s plan to put a sewer main through the town centre, or face the prospect of Warkworth becoming a ghost town.
Watercare is proposing to lay a pipeline through the central business district, to pipe sewage from new development in the north to the Lucy Moore pump station. If the project goes ahead, it is expected to cause major disruptions to traffic and parking for more than a year.
Urban, who has run the Hand & Heart gallery in Queen Street for eight years, says he doesn’t think people have quite grasped how serious the situation is.
“Most businesses won’t be able to survive,” he says. “Art galleries struggle at the best of times – it will be the end of my business.”
Urban hopes to use a creative approach to raise awareness. He wants businesses to fly black balloons and use comment stickers, displayed all over town, to encourage people to talk about the issue.
He is also thinking of Photoshopping plywood panels, covered in graffiti, over Queen Street shop fronts to graphically show people what the town might look like if the Watercare plan goes ahead.
“A petition on its own isn’t enough,” he says.
“I’ve heard people say ‘oh, yes, it will be an inconvenience’, which just shows how poorly informed they are. People just aren’t feeling that sense of urgency that the decisions are being made now.
“I can’t see the banks staying, and how will the two supermarkets in town, survive if the streets are closed?”
Urban says Watercare should front up face-to-face with every business in town, so it realises what business owners are facing.
