When I changed from marketing meat in the middle of the town centre to becoming a signwriter in the outer fringes in Victoria Street a local businessman told me I would now discover that the commerce of Masterton is not solely focused on the central business district.
He was right of course; businesses flourish in all corners of the borough, and even beyond, but a town is often judged by its main street, thriving or otherwise.
Currently Queen Street is simply not meeting the standard. There are trees are that are too tall and dying, some of the footpaths are covered in verdigris, there are alleyways that are full of rubbish and of course there are a growing number of vacant shops.
Prominent among the empty stores is the ex-Pagani premise on the corner of Queen Street and Lincoln Road. Actually it’s not empty; thanks to the generosity of the Trust Lands Trust the Masterton Art Club have been given free use of the site to display and sell their members artwork until such times as a new tenant is found.
Club members take turns tending the shop and as my better half is one of these, from time to time I am rostered on to do a stint. It’s interesting to sit there on this busy corner and watch the passing parade of people who live and love in my home town.
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of any observation is the nonsensical system that requires cars to come to a full stop at the intersection (and subsequent intersections) before being able to continue on through Queen Street. The sound of silence is regularly shattered. The constant squeal of brakes, abuse from open windows, horns tooting and near misses are commonplace and I have always wondered where the traffic consultants who designed Masterton’s curious main street system came from.
I know space exploration has failed to find any sign of life on Mars, but I am convinced these people must have been from another planet.
Some years ago three meat retailers from Waikato decided to visit our butcher’s shop. They flew to Wellington, hired a rental car and came up to Masterton. The spent a couple of hours with us, but on the homeward journey didn’t recognise the stop sign on the Queen Street Russell Street intersection and were hit by a car side on. Their rental car was written off. They were shaken, but relatively unscathed and managed to get to Wellington and fly home to Hamilton. That night one of them rang me and wanted to know what sort of municipality prohibits its main street from flowing unimpeded?
I had no cogent answer.
There is council consultation taking place now at a snail’s pace over the fate of our CBD. Common sense would see a free-flow of traffic the length of Queen Street and they might like to convince the Anglican Church Trust to abandon any plans to build a superfluous shop on the diagonal corner from Pagani, get rid of the appalling wooden fence and create a grassed area and shade trees with suitable seating.
I’m sure the Lord would approve.
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