Who will be Ashburtonian of the Year?
6th January 2011

Before we consign 2010 to the dustbin of history let us reflect for a moment on the nominations for Ashburtonian of the Year. At the time of writing there are just two.

The first is the group from the District Council that has fulfilled the dream of a new industrial park to service our growing economy. These visionary men, giants of industry and commerce, have brought forth the Ashburton Business Estate from a scrubby paddock at the north end of town.

I had my first close look at the Business Estate this week in the company of my friend from Gordon’s Road and Portia, a young Doberman bitch. Portia’s excitement was palpable as we strolled down Bremner’s Road. Muscles quivering, she snuffed the warm evening air until my friend unleashed her, whereupon she shot like a bullet from a gun into the gathering dusk. It was then, as I lifted my eyes to follow her track, that I was struck by the full magnificence of the Business Estate.

Like a scene from a Cold War novel the Estate is a picture of near-perfect apocalypsis: pristine roadways, elegant kerbs and channels, streetlamps – even surveillance cameras – all curve away across an expanse of fine rippling grass towards a golden horizon unmarred by single structure. The silence is palpable: somewhere a tumbleweed blows.

Surmounting an elegantly formed embankment planted with many hundreds of small native trees, my friend and I gazed across this $20million ratepayer investment and marvelled at the vision of its creators.

“I was agin it,” my friend confided. “I thought it would be noisy and disruptive but now I see what they were really doing I think it’s brilliant. Overnight they’ve given me an 85ha dog park; I’m even thinking of bringing the horse down here for a bit of exercise.”

But we should not judge the achievement of the Business Estate’s creators simply by the earthworks. The genius is in the marketing. Even now some of Ashburton’s brainiest are fanning out across Canterbury to lure industry away from competitors like Rolleston’s I-Site or the new Dakota Park estate at Christchurch airport.

The Business Estate’s website is breathless with excitement at the inventory of companies that have almost signed up, attracted by global transport links and the nifty begonia beds that provide such a warm welcome.

By comparison the second nomination for Ashburtonian of the Year is, frankly, an embarrassment. It is the colony of black-billed gulls nesting in the Ashburton river bed. Apart from the obvious fact that a group of migratory birds can hardly claim status as true Ashburtonians there is no merit in the irresponsible behaviour of creatures that raise their offspring standing in a gravel bed up to their backsides in dirty water.

It is preposterous to contemplate that a gaggle of seabirds may attain the cover-girl status of Ashburtonian of the Year when they possess neither the vision nor the ratepayer resources of the creators of the Business Estate.

It has been suggested to me that our town is privileged to host the black-billed gulls, that we should embrace these rare birds as an icon for the district. I say how will our town slogan – It Just Keeps Getting Better – appear to the tourist or business investor driving across the Ashburton bridge into a shower of bird shit?

So the Ashburtonian of the Year is a stark choice between the gulls of the river bed and the giants of the Business Estate. The winner will have a statue erected in their honour. What will it be, a great white seagull at the south end of town or a great white elephant at the north?