Fabulous Flaxmere

June 17th, 2019 by Damon Harvey

The sun was shining on Flaxmere last week and lets hope that the sun never sets in the suburb that was created in 1966.

Flaxmere continues to get knocked but many of it’s people stand tall. There’s plenty more to be achieved in Flaxmere and it will require some bold decisions over the next 3 years.

Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga has announced a visionary co-housing residential development in Flaxmere West which aims to make home ownership more accessible without compromising on quality. The ‘sod was turned’ and the land blessed before the first of over 100 houses rises from the ground.

Flaxmere Park was also a hive of activity, firstly with the long awaited re-opening of the park’s playground, then Matariki celebrations, followed by the inaugural Flaxmere parkrun, a worldwide phenomena, that has made its way to Flaxmere. Over 200 runners completed 3 laps of the sealed running track around the park.

The run brought people to Flaxmere that usually wouldn’t visit on an early Saturday morning as well as getting local families out enjoying one of our best parks. More importantly it connected people from all walks of life and got them all doing something healthy and fun.

I was asked by my fellow councillor Henare O’Keefe on my views about the event, to which I said “it’s Flaxmere’s time to shine” and that local events brings people in our community much closer together. We need to look at doing more of these types of events. Matariki only happens once a year, a park opening – once in a possibly 10 years, so we need to look at creating ways of bringing our people together more often.

I also went and visited my old Crossfit buddy Moira McGarva-Ratapu who operates PurSuit from the Flaxmere Community Centre. I had promised to give her some of my business shirts and it was great to drop them off and know that they are going to benefit new job seekers.