Full description of idea:

With the urban drift affecting city centres around the world, and in light of the challenges around COVID 19, plus the rise of online shopping, retail, namely local business's, are in real danger of closing down. How can we address this challenge? What new thinking are we tapping into to support us? And just how will we attract people back into the centre of town? Easy really; we need to give people a reason to want to come into town and spend money...How?
What areas in any European town/city are the most popular? If you've travelled and observant, you'll know it's the old town. What's the attraction? Cobbled streets, no traffic, sprawling squares with people spilling out of cafes, alfresco dining and history oozing out of every nook and cranny. But we're a young country, we don't have hundreds of years of history? Er, not if you're Maori, we have hundreds of years of history we should be accentuating and learning about. Instead, I learnt about King Henry and his 6 wives! I remember when Matamata was one of the first towns to really do up their town through nice paving, cracking gardens and there was a real sense of pride. Other towns eventually followed suite. Our next big move as a community, given the challenges we currently face, will need to involve a massive pivot out of the old thinking and into the future, involve a massive investment, and be a place where talent wants to live. We can do that be reinventing our town and giving people a reason to come into town. Some ideas could be:
-pedestrianise Arawa St;
-markets once a month in Arawa St centred around around 20 pre made, 'market houses' sim to Christmas markets in Germany;
-central destination playground;
-redesign of Matamata centre (bypass esp for heavy traffic);
-spaces/monuments dedicated to te ao Maori showcasing our bi cultural heritage;
-community marae in the centre of town for people to use;
The late, great New Zealander of the year Paul Callaghan once said we, in NZ, lack visionary leadership, both on the left and right side of the political spectrum. Can the same be said at a community level? Who's stepping up...

How this idea will benefit the community:

See above

Comments on this idea:

Nobody has commented on this idea yet...