Increasingly derelict theatre a disgrace

THE Guide has this week been operating in a déjà vu-esque fugue state and to blame is a recent trawl through back issues of our mother ship, The Gisborne Herald.
Among the yellowing pages we stumbled across a 1980 story detailing a proposal for the development of a town square for Gisborne. The location was at the corner of Bright Street and Gladstone Road. And the story was accompanied by a fine illustration showing how it would work — the lovely trees, the open spaces where people could gather, where musicians could perform, where there would be a true heart of this city.
Hang on a minute. Wasn’t this a proposal that reared its head again in 2008? The same idea? The same location? The same enthusiasm for a vibrant focal point for our community?
It was just as visionary in 2008 as it was in 1980 but still — more than 20 years later and after at least two rounds of very expensive discussion — we have nothing.
The fear creeping into this fugue state is that we are going to see exactly the same thing happen with the planned redevelopment of our primary performance space, the War Memorial Theatre.
Various groups have been consulted. Plans have been drawn up. Gisborne District Council even appointed a staff member to seek funding.
But Council recently put the brakes on the progression of this project, cancelling a planned grand announcement on what was to happen and moving to look into the issue further.
It is now up to agitators from both the community and within council to work to move this project forward and give us the theatre we deserve.
In the meantime, what we have for our main theatre is a disgrace . . . a semi-derelict, allegedly unsafe facility that will keep performers — let alone audiences — away in their droves.
Whatever happens, it will be some time before Gisborne gets the quality, reasonable capacity theatre that it deserves.
It will likely cost a couple-or-more hundred thousand to do the interim patch-ups required, among them fixing, painting and replacing seats.
But that, we believe, is the price of procrastination.
Do you have an opinion about the delay of the proposed War Memorial Theatre upgrade? E-mail guide@gisborneherald.co.nz