The other day I went on Google Maps and looked at Frankton. The street view was taken in 2015 and I saw the most beautiful thing: NO TRAFFIC!!! There were clear roads, no congestion and it was amazing. Today, Frankton is in serious trouble.
The level of development is leading to a lack of space. We are living in a bowl. This mean we are surrounded by mountains, eventually we will run out of space and this is a fact. Now I know Queenstown is growing at an alarming rate, but if we could maybe slow down the development in the farm land next to Five Mile because our beautiful scenery is being spoiled. Some parts of Crown Range is protected because the government doesn’t want to ruin its beauty. All I am saying is that we are known for being a different town and beautiful, so why should we ruin that?
My next point is about something that has been hurting the whole of Queenstown majorly and that is the absurd cost of houses. Don’t get me wrong, some houses deserve to be worth one million dollars, but a cottage in Arrowtown went for 1.3 million dollars the other day and I don’t know why. Maybe this is because of the lack of space in Queenstown, but it needs to stop. This creates unwanted financial pressure that families weren't expecting when buying a new house. My solution to this problem is to bring down the cost of materials, make affordable housing areas and maybe we need more houses like apartments.
My third point is why lots of people avoid going to Frankton at all costs, and this is because of traffic. Imagine this: you come down to Queenstown for the first time. You get in your rental car excited about exploring the Adventure Capital of the World, and you go 50 meters and then stop because the traffic is backed up to the airport roundabout. Then you have to wait 30 more minutes to even get to the BP roundabout. This traffic affects me. I play basketball, I go to the Events Centre every Tuesday to play for my school team and I have to be there at 6pm. On the first night I left 15 minutes early, that was enough, I’m going to have some time to warm up and it will be great. But no. I was 20 minutes late and missed out on half of the game. The next time I left at 5.20 pm and just got there with only five minutes to spare because the traffic was backed up to Five Mile. I’ve also heard about the “Eastern Access Road” and there is no better time to open it than now. Not only would it free up space for the locals it would free up space for people arriving from Invercargill and Riverton travelling through to Wanaka, Arrowtown or Cromwell.
In conclusion, I hope we can all work together to do something to save Frankton and limit visual pollution, reduce the cost of houses and fix the traffic congestion.
By Dominic Hamilton - Wakatipu High School Year 10 Student