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Nicola Jones wants to see the walkway along the Mahurangi Riverbank to the Cement Works finished.
Warkworth Area Business Association treasurer and businesswoman, Nicola Jones’ family has lived in the Mahurangi area for many generations. She shares her views on growth:
Warkworth has changed so much from when I grew up here. Change is normal nowadays but I’d love to see Warkworth hang onto its special ‘community-oriented’ feel that it has always had. It’s nice to live and work in a community that is supportive, friendly and familiar, with few issues like crime and chaos (parking issues aside!) so it’d be nice to see that vibe remain even once the population grows up here.
I’d like to see the Warkworth town centre area remain primarily single-storeyed to maintain that village atmosphere and allow for boutique retail shops that become a destination in their own right. It would be amazing to have a visionary developer come through and turn all the buildings around to face the river. Ideally, this would be someone with a genuine sense of community development so it is not simply done with only financial benefit in mind.
We have such a unique asset in the river and it is such a shame we aren’t utilising it as well as we could (thinking of recreation and transport options). Now that I have small children I am more aware of the lack of specific recreational activity/open public space areas we have available – which doesn’t make sense as we have some of the most amazing scenery anywhere in the world. I’d love to see the wide walkway from town to the Cement Works completed, a bike and skate park for the kids to have fun at and learn skills, and completion of the cycleways that are planned so that we don’t have to navigate narrow roads on our bikes. A public pool is beyond overdue!
Retaining the annual Kowhai Festival, Santa Parade and fostering local street markets also needs to be protected to maintain our identity – these events bring a lot of people to town and create excellent exposure.
I see having a community-lead Structure Plan in place will help ensure Warkworth is connected and the town grows cohesively as one, ensuring no industrial versus retail or north versus south splits. I work in community groups that are made up of volunteers who are passionate about making Warkworth the best place it can possibly be – and because they care enough to work hard (i.e get off their seats and get involved in processes where decisions are made that affect the future of Warkworth), most of the visions will eventually be realised. It will just take slightly longer to happen as fundraising, volunteer effort and Council consultation takes time. Having a Warkworth Business Improvement District in place would be a small step in the right direction to move things along at a pace that is in time with growth.
The predicted growth does threaten our identity and the community-feel of the town. Demand will drive the arrival of the big-box businesses but this means we will start to look very similar to many other towns in NZ. We need to ensure we work hard to maintain the unique reasons why people come to love, work and visit our beautiful region.
