A footpath fixed in quake city

OPINION

Little things make a difference.

Four years after the February 2011 earthquakes contractors are fixing the footpath outside our home in St Albans, central Christchurch.

The liquefaction erupting from the ground wrecked the tarmac in countless streets.

For four years I’ve tripped over the stones and jealously watched other streets being tidied up by the city council’s repair crews.

Often they seemed to focus on routine maintenance in the wealthier suburbs, a common gripe from we plebs further east.

I’m delighted at progress on the inner city rebuild, glacial though it is, and tidying up of the massive residential red zone area which is now a massive green zone in the eastern suburbs until someone decides what to do with it.

Gatherers often stop in their cars in the deserted and demolished neighbourhoods, hop over the fences built by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, and harvest apples, lemons and spinach from what’s left of the deserted gardens.

But returning home to the stony patch outside my house, and a couple of others in an otherwise tidy street, became irritating.

For a long time I reminded myself “the meek will inherit the earth” and there were lots of other people with much worse things to moan about. We adopted that attitude during our three-year wait for house repairs and there are still thousands of homeowners battling insurers over house rebuilds and repairs.

Four years later I decided “God helps those who help themselves,” following the example of a city council about to help itself to an 8% annual rates rise for each of the next four years.

My squeaky wheel approach began with a polite email to the city council.

No response.

A few weeks later I observed road workers in an undamaged connecting street laying a load of road chip. It looked very nice.

So I asked one of the guys if I could encourage them to come down our street.

Alas it was part of a longer maintenance schedule.

He gave me good advice though – point out in my correspondence to council the health and safety risk.

My second email compete with photograph contained the subject line “urgent – health and safety”, and I explained how my 88-year mother-in-law and 94-year old father still visit us and have to pick their way with their sticks over the rubble as they lurch like ships toward their cars.

Bingo. Two weeks later we have action.

Now if only we could do something about the earthquake-induced dip in the street that forms a small lake when it rains ...

c.hutch@clear.net.nz