Pegasus Post: May 10, 2016

PEGASUS POST Tuesday May 10 2016 7
neighbourhood NEWS News tips? Email fraser.walker@starmedia.kiwi or phone 364 7424
School space draws interest
from community groups
FRASER WALKER-PEARCE
Help for the Homeless is one of
more than 50 community groups
that has registered its interest
in the use of a classroom at the
former Central New Brighton
School.
Central New Brighton, along
with Freeville and North New
Brighton schools were merged to
make way for Rawhiti School at
the end of last year.
ReNew Brighton has volunteered
to help line up the use of
the former school site with the
best wishes of the community.
The site has been split up into
three sections. The hall, the pool,
and the school sites.
ReNew Brighton co-ordinator
Sylvia Smyth said the hall site
has not seen any changes, and
is currently being used by the
Christchurch Circus Trust.
Meanwhile, a decision to
demolish the pool site is being
lobbied by the Strategic Urban
Rejuvenation Force, after it
was announced without public
consultation.
Ms Smyth said this has left the
school site, which contains nine
usable classrooms, up for community
use.
COMMUNITY USE: The former Central New Brighton School site is
currently being negotiated for community use by ReNew Brighton.
“We don’t know
how long we will
have this (site) for.
The school has
gone to the disposal
process, which
is what happens
when the Ministry of Education
doesn’t need the school anymore,
and they’re in the process
of getting rid of it,” she said.
Help for the Homeless founder
Amy Burke (above) said the group
is “very interested” in using one of
the classrooms for storage.
“We are very interested in the
site. We’re hoping for it, because
then we can get a new space for
storing furniture, although we
haven’t been in contact with the
organisers since then,” she said.
She said getting a classroom for
storage would “make things really
easy”, because furniture currently
has to be placed all over town.
Ms Smyth said ReNew
Brighton will continue
negotiations with the Ministry of
Education.
“There was a huge variety of
ideas and among that a strong art
theme. We don’t know how we
will operate just yet . . . we’re
at the point now that we’ve said
we’ll continue lease negotiations
with the ministry,” she said.
Owners just happy
parakeet is alive
FRASER WALKER-PEARCE
A family who lost their parakeet
two years ago have been
reunited with their feathery
friend, but they won’t take him
back home, they’re just happy
to see he’s alive.
Pegasus Post
reported last
week that a parakeet
had made
itself at home in
a Burwood resident’s
trees.
A Shirley resident
contacted
the Pegasus
Post to say she
thought the
bird could be
her “best fiend”
Tweety Bird,
who she lost two
years before.
Shahna Hira said she lost
her pet parakeet two years ago
when it managed to escape
outside and fly away.
“We did post things on Facebook
and Trade Me and tracked
him for a month after he flew
away. We went to all the locations
that people had said they’d
seen him, but couldn’t find
him,” she said.
But, after reading last week’s
article, Ms Hira was convinced
that Tweety Bird had reappeared
at Burwood residents
Roger and Veronica Foley’s
house. She made contact with
the couple, who
have had the
parakeet visit them
every day since
they moved in last
year.
Ms Hira said
she visited the
Foleys twice to
have a look at the
parakeet, and was
“certain” it was
the same bird she
had lost two years
before.
But she said as
much as she wanted
to catch Tweety
Bird and take him home, she
knew she had to leave him.
“As much as we’d love to
have caught him and taken him
home, we’re just happy to know
he’s happy, and happy to know
he’s being looked after. I will be
visiting him but it’s never going
to be about us trying to catch
him,” she said.