20 April 2011 Team attitude essential in recovery of Christchurch

A plea to remember that “we are all in the same team”, concerned equally for the future well-being of Christchurch, was made by the Head of Lincoln University’s School of Landscape Architecture, Neil Challenger, at Monday’s Resilient Futures disaster recovery conference, held on the campus.

The public forum, attended by 120 community and other representatives and opened by Christchurch’s Deputy Mayor Ngaire Button, featured national and international specialist speakers covering all aspects of earthquake and disaster mitigation and recovery.

Convener Dr Suzanne Vallance of Lincoln University’s Faculty of Environment, Society and Design, said the aim was to canvas, gather and collate information and ideas on how best to facilitate genuine community participation in Christchurch’s recovery. 

The sub-title of the conference was Supporting Recovery in Greater Christchurch.

“We are all in the same team,” said Mr Challenger. “We don’t want an oppositional situation in which we cast the City Council and CERA in the roles of the ‘evil bad guys’ standing opposed to our own ‘laudable’ roles and efforts.” 

Dr Vallance said there was “enormous public willingness” to contribute to the recovery of Christchurch, and she hoped to see, for example, the continuation of student involvement.

To applause, Philip Baldwin of the Diocese of Christchurch, said that CERA “must hear the message from us over and over again that we are the people who live in Christchurch and choose to live here and will continue to live here for the rest of our lives”.

Summarising a prevalent sentiment at the conference, Christchurch East MP the Hon Lianne Dalziel said “do good works with us, not to us.”

She pointed out that “recovery is not just about re-building. We’ve got to get people’s hope restored.”