Support Great Chelsea Gardens

Dear fellow garden lovers,

Our Trust aims to create a garden of wide public appeal as a feature of the Chelsea Heritage Park. Chelsea is a very significant area that should be enjoyed by a wide spectrum of Aucklanders. By taking a planned approach, the Great Chelsea Gardens Trust will enable the venture to grow through active involvement of a wide range of dedicated gardeners and supporters.

The Auckland Council has prepared a draft management plan for the Chelsea Heritage Park. We understand this plan does not provide for gardens in the park. We have already made a submission to the management plan and intend making further representations to the council before the management plan is formalized.

Our past experiences with council has shown how absolutely essential it is to have the support of all gardeners from greater Auckland and beyond. We will only be successful in our aim to create and manage a significant garden for the benefit of the public if every gardener supports our representation. Therefore, as one of the main steps we need to gather evidence of your support for this project. We are asking now for your written support, by way of a petition. This petition asks Council to consider allowing the Great Chelsea Gardens Trust to create these gardens in the Chelsea Heritage Park.

We need as many signatures as possible, to help convince the Council that our plans do have a great deal of public support, and would really appreciate your efforts to assist us with this.

If you support our plans, we urge you to encourage all your members to sign the petition, and collect signatures from as many supporters and garden lovers as possible, before posting it back to our secretary, Kathy McCormack, as soon as possible. Ideally we would like to have all petition papers back to us by Friday 2nd December, in time for a probable December hearing.

The Chelsea Heritage Park is adjacent to, but does not include, the historically significant Chelsea Sugar Refinery which is still operating. Council purchased land from the Refinery 4 years ago and has designated it a Heritage Park because of the role the Refinery has played in Auckland’s development. The land includes some regenerating bush, extensive grassed areas offering superb views of the harbour and city, direct harbour access and moderately sized lakes.

The Sugar Refinery was built between 1883 and 1884. Management took an interest in beautifying the estate, to the extent that in 1975 Chelsea won the Waitemata Garden Centre prize for the best factory environment on the North Shore. In 1984 a ‘centenary grove’ of 120 kauri trees was planted in the grounds to commemorate the century of Chelsea Refinery.

The Great Chelsea Gardens Trust (GCGT) believes that the creation of a significant garden for the benefit of the public as part of the development of this historic site will increase the breadth of its appeal whilst enhancing its heritage status and framing the panoramas. Chelsea is a very significant area that should be enjoyed by a wide spectrum of Aucklanders.