Newspaper Article 1996 – Hastings needs a Harry Poppelwell

Hastings needs a Harry Poppelwell

HASTINGS mayor, Jeremy Dwyer has warned his council against getting cold feet over the future of Fantasyland. It is a warning that should be heeded by councillors and the citizens of Hastings.

Let’s be honest. As a plains city, Hastings has no distinguishing natural features of beauty or interest and in the kind of winter we are now experiencing we present a dull, drab visage to the outside world. The shining exceptions are our parks and reserves with Fantasyland the jewel in the crown.

The future of Fantasyland is now being re-examined by the council and, as Mr Dwyer says, has been subjected to more reviews than any other of the city’s assets. The latest, by Trust Bank Central’s marketing manager, David Clapperton, says Fantasyland could cost ratepayers $500,000 a year to run by the year 2000.

ADULT ADMISSIONS are down to 40 per cent, government subsides have fallen and ratepayer funding increased from $46,000 in 1979-80 to $270,000. Vandalism at Fantasyland alone between April-June this year cost $10,000.

He says Fantasyland has no strategic plan and marketing skills; it needs to aim at adult audiences, impose entry charges for children, and set up a program of buying new features and to gain control of food and beverage outlets.

The council is now considering suggestions that Fantasyland could be handed over to a board of directors and run as a business, with Mr Clapperton favouring a new management structure under the direction of Destination Hastings. There appears to be council support for it to be operated as a local authority trading enterprise.

WHATEVER the outcome, change is necessary and inevitable and it should not be feared. Fantasyland has grown and evolved over the years since it was first proposed and established through the drive and vision of the late Harry Poppelwell after a trip to Disneyland in the 1960s.

Since then it has given pleasure to two generations of Hastings children, their parents and visitors who have shared in Harry Poppelwell’s dream.

Fantasyland is but one of the extraordinary legacies left to Hastings by Mr Poppelwell. He was also the instigator of Greater Hastings in the early 1950s which led to the extraordinary successful Hastings Blossom Festival and the Hastings Highland Games, the former now being reactivated and the latter still an annual event, but only as a dancing and piping competition.

There is no doubt that Hastings still needs Fantasyland. What it also needs is another Harry Poppelwell.