Monthly Archives: August 2015

Newtown Festival wins an award!

August 26, 2015NewsR.C.

The Festival was nominated for a Wellington Airport Regional Community Award in recognition of the excellent work the recycling steering group and the volunteers put into recycling at the Street Fair this year. James Coyle, Vanessa Rushton, Renee Rushton (Newtown Community and Cultural Centre), Hannah Macintosh (South Wellington Timebank), and Ben Phillips took on the challenge of making a significant impact on the amount of waste going to the landfill. 50% of waste from the Fair was diverted to either recycling or compost – and they intend to do even better next year!

At the Wellington City awards last night the Newtown Residents’ Association Festival Committee was announced as the winner of the Heritage and Environment category!

The next step is the Regional Awards, bringing together the winners from Wellington, Kapiti, Hutt City, Upper Hutt and Porirua – the Regional Awards wil be announced on November 10th.

Congratulations to all involved! Continue reading Newtown Festival wins an award! →

Report on the August Residents’ Association Meeting

August 23, 2015Meetings, NewsR.C.

Brief Notes from the NRA Meeting on August 17th
You can see the full minutes by following this link.

The state of Newtown Streets
Residents are unhappy about the state of our streets and think that the contractors could do a better job. A recent audit of the amount of rubbish and disrepair listed many problems. The Association Secretary agreed to write a letter to the WCC about the concerns.

The Newtown Festival has been nominated for a Wellington Airport Regional Community Award (Heritage and Environment Category) in recognition of the work James Coyle and the rest of the recycling steering group and the volunteers put into recycling at the Street Fair this year. The hope is to inspire other events to increase recycling efforts. This could include permanent recycling stations on our streets.

Celebrate Newtown: this aspect of the Newtown Festival will run through February to late March 2016. The Festival Committee are inviting people to think of events to run during this time, that can be added to the programme. If you have proposals, please contact us.

August Meeting

August 13, 2015Meetings, NewsR.C.

Newtown Residents’ Association Monthly Meeting:

Monday, 17th August 2015, 7.30pm at the Newtown Hall, 71 Daniell St. All welcome!

Subscriptions are due now – so if you want to be a financial member, with a vote at the AGM on Monday 21st September, please bring a gold coin to the meeting.

We would like to hear about any issues you think should be discussed at the meeting – please c ontact us.

Wellington Community Choir Concert 29th August

August 12, 2015Local Events, NewsR.C.

Celebrating with a programme of music from the world’s cultures, Wellington Community Choir will be joined by guest choirs and local musicians at this special 10th anniversary concert. See more here.

We can almost claim the choir for Newtown – members from all over Wellington come to Te Whaea: National Dance & Drama Centre in Hutchison Rd to practice., and at this year’s Newtown Festival the Choir were the first performance on the Main Street stage. Follow this link to see their profile.

Report on the NRA July Meeting

August 1, 2015Consultation, Meetings, NewsR.C.

The Newtown Residents’ Association met on July 20th 2015.

You can see the meeting minutes here. These were two of the main of the issues discussed:

Efforts to consult with contractors doing potentially disruptive street works.

In mid July Jeanie McCafferty, NRA Vice President and local retailer, became aware that work was about to start on upgrading the trolley wires in Constable St. There had been no prior consultation, and the work was going to be very disruptive to traffic flows and parking. Jeanie managed to arrange an emergency meeting with the contractors, other retailers, and WCC representatives, and agreement was reached on doing the work in the least disruptive way, including no Saturday work. There is more to be done on establishing policies to make sure that in future there will always be consultation with affected parties before work starts.

Submission on Private Plan Change 79

A developer has applied to change the zoning of a property at 42a Riddiford Street from Inner Residential to Suburban Centre. 42a is a back section, and a zoning change would allow it to be amalgamated with properties at 40 and 42 Riddiford St for a combined commercial development. The neighbours in the Residential zone, particularly in Nikau St, are very concerned about how this will affect them. The meeting agreed to oppose this change. You can see the NRA Submission here.