The St Albans Community Website

St Albans News’ May edition takes a walk down memory lane (Edgeware Rd) with a kiwi lad who grew up in St Albans but made a name as a rugby writer in France for French newspapers. Ian Borthwick, son of the late Basil and Natalie, also took some eerie photos with no people in them during the lockdown in Paris several years ago and these have been on display in Christchurch. Daph Parkins, now in her mid 90s and still going strong, talks about her childhood in 1930s St Albans. Click on the image to the right to download and catch up with the latest news from Christchurch’s golden suburb.

Garry Moore talks to furniture maker Peter Davey who has closed the Ambrose Heal custom-made furniture store in Barbadoes St. The Edgeware Pool rebuild could start as early as October after the Pool group is granted some Better Off community funding for consents and other paperwork. Click the image to the right to download and read the April edition of St Albans News. StAN will be delivered to most St Albans letterboxes on March 28. It can also be obtained now from the community centre and the supermarket.

Some residents living in a residential heritage area are concerned that the special status granted to their street is being eroded by a council that allows buildings to conform to little more than the roof line shape and not heritage features to be built. Most of the residents have spent money repairing quake damaged homes and modernise behind the scenes. Download the pdf by clicking on the image.

The main feature of our smaller, eight page issue this month is Yolanda Soryl, St Albans resident and phonics teacher honoured in the New Year’s Honours List. And there’s a roundup of bits and pieces of news about what the city council has been up to and goings on in the suburb while some people were away in the mountains or lazing on an island in the Pacific. Download the pdf by clicking on the image.

It is looking like the Christchurch City Council might try to sell some city assets after all to reduce rates or to help pay for things like the Te Kaha sports stadium. However, some Christchurch citizens made their objections known at a recent meeting. The 16 page December/January edition, the last for 2023, also features a couple of Christmas pages, a followup story about Nurse Duncan who was midwife and mother to Ina, who we featured earlier in the year and more. We also celebrate 30 years of St Albans News with a brief update of the past five years and recap the 2018 story of the St Albans Neighbourhood News which first appeared in letterboxes in December 1993.

It’s a slim edition and mostly a preliminary report about the recent general election. National won the party vote in the Christchurch Central electorate while Duncan Webb retained the electorate seat on the night. Things might change when the special votes are counted and included in the total. The new Government is likely to be a combination of ACT and National and possibly one other party. And in Te Tai Tonga, Te Pati Maori candidate Tukata Ferris unseated Labour’s Rino Tirakatene. A few smaller pieces fill a couple of remaining pages. Click on the image to the right to download the November edition of St Albans News.

St Albans School reunion and election candidates feature in the October edition of St Albans News.The primary school is 150 years old, having started in 1873, and celebrated with photos, speeches, cake cutting, singing and sack racing. Many different generations of school children have passed through its doors. With the general elections on October 14 we take provide a brief view of 11 candidates standing for Christchurch Central and Te Tai Tonga.

St Albans says farewell to local identity (rugby legend and tomato grower) Tane Norton who died in early August, with a focus on tomatoes that provided his family with a good living before they took over operations at Bailies and the Cranford Ale House. There is also a rough guide to political party views and policies in the centre pages given that there is an election in mid-October. It is not intended as a comprehensive view but more of a starter kit on where to find out more about the party policies behind the rhetoric.

St Albans Primary School is celebrating 150 years in September and St Albans News has dedicated a 4 page spread to the jubilee. We have a look at the Shirley Community Centre, one of the first to be set up in Christchurch in 1977 but looking like the last badly damaged centre to be replaced, if it is. Council has been consulting the community on the topic for three years in a search for alternatives. And a roadshow travelling the country pushing the line that co-governance is a plot by Maori elites faces protest action in Caledonian Rd. All this and more in the August edition of St Albans News. Click on the image to the tight to download and read.

Lots of stories in St Albans News in July, including one about the urban forest (we are losing trees and not replacing them fast enough in the city) and the possibility that the Edgeware Pool when built could become a refuge in a hotter climate. Ada Wells, the local teacher who became the city’s first woman councillor and helped install public playgrounds also features in a piece that looks back 150 years. StAN is being delivered to letterboxes on July 6.

Parking in Edgeware Village could cost you if you don’t know how to beat the time limits (talk to the owner) and we take a first look at some expensive new homes going up on the Orion block. June’s St Albans News is packed with long stories and short bites, from litter on a street corner to the prospect of transport corridors lined with six storey houses. Find out how you can trap rats in your backyard and contribute toward New Zealand becoming pest-free by 2050 We even have space to bring back the letters’page.

St Albans News talks to a 95 year old who has spent most of her life in St Albans and there’s a piece about the author of a book called “Fear” who is concerned about links between local operators and international activists behind the protest in Parliament in March 2022. No one solution will solve the city’s flooding problems but things like installing swales and storage tanks might make a difference as the city intensifies housing. Click on the image to download and read the May issue.

It has been suggested by some St Albans residents that a public barbecue should be placed in St Albans Park but apparently it needs public support as well as intensive enough use of the park to justify it. The city council has installed and maintains a number of public barbecues, mostly in places like Hagley Park and around the city edges. St Albans Park is well used for sports activities and an area near the children’s playground popular with picnickers has been suggested for placement. The April edition of St Albans News is also a slim one due to lower ad revenue but it’s packed inside with plenty of small stories. Click on the image to download and read.

The March edition of St Albans News may be slimmer than usual but it’s packed inside with plenty of small stories. The main feature has been given over to the tale of how the St Albans Residents Association (SARA) was reborn to fight the government’s first attempt at running a motorway through St Albans. It involved a former mayor and a newly-minted dame. The Kohinga Mara pantry has been completed and is now on the St Albans Community Centre forecourt in Colombo St where passersby can find fresh fruit and vegetables from the centre’s garden or donated from other St Albans gardens. SARA is beginning a journey to make the centre zero waste by partnering with Para Kore.

St Albans and Christchurch lost kaumātua Terry Ryan when he died in October. With the help of others in Otautahi who knew him, we recall his life’s work. Looks like there will be a long and expensive wait for a solution to the flooding in the lowest parts of St Albans and there’s likely to be a queue for such work given the city sinking after the quakes and seas rising with climate change. The St Albans community centre won a national architecture award for its building, mainly for the way it sequesters carbon, a building for the future and lots more. Click on the image to the right to download and view the December/January pdf pages.

The September issue (being delivered to letterboxes on September 1) is largely devoted to local body elections. It features mayoral candidates, councillors, community board member candidates and Environment Canterbury candidates. In some non-election news Residents associations are banding together to ask the council to give greater emphasis to things like greenery and green space when deciding what will be prioritised in the new district plan. To find out more, download and read the September issue of St Albans News, just click the image to the right.

Fans of the Edgeware Pool are celebrating the council allocation of extra funding for the Edgeware Pool that will reduce the amount the pool group still needs to raise to construct the pool. It could even be operating in 18 months, so it will be a year of full-on fundraising to raise the final million dollars. The Government is getting serious about organising recycling and waste management on a nationwide basis. We take a quick look at a few more places closer to home that specialise in finding new uses for particular items. Find more local news stories, such some of the rhododendrons in Abberley Park turning brown and dying in the latest St Albans News edition – just click the image to the right.

Residents of Christchurch inner green suburbs, like St Albans and Richmond are sick of houses being demolished and replaced with ugly concrete blocks, tarseal and shrubs. One Christchurch resident, who has organised a petition, thinks we should demand the council ditch the district plan proposal and rewrite it so that the inner city is developed first and when vacant land in the CBD runs out then start looking at inner suburbs.There is plenty of time to incorporate plans to allow 4-6 or more storeys in a later plan review. And while they are gradually disappearing in St Albans there’s a feature on trees in centre pages. Read all this and more in the latest St Albans News edition- just click the image to the right.

In the latest St Albans News the bookshop/postshop/bank in Edgeware Village is closing (or will it reappear somewhere else in the village). There’s also a couple of profiles of St Albans residents: swimmer Sophie Pascoe and heritage specialist Dave Hinman feature because they won New Year’s honours: Sophie as a Dame Companion and Dave as a QSM. We take a look at a couple of activities that happened at the centre and now staff are back at work the city council is gearing up for a busy year.

Another thing the city council has no plans to fix is the flooding after heavy rain that hits Edgeware Village shopping area on average once a year, entering shops uninvited. Cost would be too much and of limited benefit they say. The December 2021 flood also caused problems around Champion St where it meets Edgeware Rd, prompting residents to ask for an investigation into what could be done. The area was part of the post-quake investigation into Dudley Creek but Flockton Basin was the only flood work to get the green light. We also say goodbye to Jan MacKenzie, legendary gardener and preserver, who died on New Year’s Day. Click on the image to the right to access February’s News.

The Christchurch City Council says it has no plans to replace the fence alongside the toddlers’ play equipment in St Albans Park, which was removed during drainage work at the park. Are they doing enough to make things safe for toddlers and their caregivers at the St Albans Park playground – removal of the fence leaves it open for kids to do a runner and the fence removal has left behind some metal plates that could be tripped over. Meanwhile a shared pathway in Cranford St near Placemakers has been linked to some recent collisions between cyclists and car drivers and residents fear it could be involved in more accidents. All this and more in a bumper 20 page Christmas edition. Click on the image to the right to download and read.

Mass rapid transit in the form of double decker buses or trams could come down Cranford St and Sherborne St, but not for a few decades (and only if population increases and that option is chosen). A new service has started at the community centre for situations where you just don’t know where to start dealing with them. Neighbours of the residential, anti-violence programme for men proposed for Bristol St have not been appeased by concessions offered by Corrections. All this and more in the August issue of St Albans News. Click on the image to the right to download.

The new St Albans Community Centre is finally open. Ten and a half years ago the first big quake made the 90 year old brick building a no go area. Corrections plans for a prison rehab centre in Bristol St are causing anxiety amongst nearby residents who are fearful of the consequences of 16 violent men living in a built-up urban area. Meanwhile residents of Flockton St want street traffic plans reviewed as, following the northern arterial opening, rat-running traffic has shifted to streets parallel with Cranford St that have not been graced with a cul de sac. Click on the image to the right to download.