Johnsonville Mall

Last month, Wellington City Council approved the consent for redevelopment of Johnsonville Mall.

JCA applauds the potential improvement in retail facilities, as local people have been crying out for this for decades.

However, with the honey, the Council is also making us eat scraps.

They’re taking our integrated, off-street public transport hub away from us.

They want us to be happy with bus-stops squeezed onto the already-busy Moorefield Road.

These roadside bus stops are likely to be both unsafe and exposed to poor weather. In addition, our new library will have to be smaller to fit the bus tops in. And who knows where the planned cycleway will go?

This and other major decisions about how the new Johnsonville Shopping Centre will work as a public space have already been decided between WCC Officers and the Auckland-based big-business mall owner Stride with zero community consultation.

To call this disappointing would be an understatement.

On your behalf, the JCA has lobbied long and hard for a comprehensive plan for in integrated Public Transport Hub. We want Park-n-Ride and off-street bus-stops. Councillors from both Greater Wellington and Wellington City councils have promised, in writing, that Johnsonville will get high quality facilities. But in practise they seem set to ignore that and to press ahead with a cheap mess that will end the chances of an integrated off-street PT hub forever.

JCA says: “Carry on like this, councillors, and you can’t your constituents if they start thinking you’re all talk and no walk.”