Dunedin community groups will soon have an opportunity to put old main street pavers to ‘Totally Georgeous’ re-use.
As part of the Dunedin City Council’s Retail Quarter upgrade underway, all the current pavers in George Street will be progressively replaced over the next two years.
DCC Central City Plan Project Director Dr Glen Hazelton says, “Rather than disposing of the old pavers, we’re keen to see as many of them as possible re-used, particularly in ways that will benefit the community and/or have positive environmental outcomes.”
The DCC has set up a page on its website at www.dunedin.govt.nz/totally-georgeous, where groups and residents can tell us how they could re-use the pavers.
“We’ll evaluate the submissions and prioritise those which have positive community and/or environmental impacts. This may include community groups re-selling the pavers as a fundraiser,” Dr Hazelton says.
Successful recipients must also be willing to pick up at least one pallet worth of pavers.
Most of the existing pavers on George Street were installed nearly 30 years ago and have reached the end of their useful life. It’s also inevitable that many (around half) of the pavers will be broken in the process of removing them.
“Nevertheless, the old pavers could be re-used in community projects including walkways, flower planters, water features, garden art and more,” Dr Hazelton says.
In total, there’s about 2300m2 of paving, or some 115,000 individual pavers on George Street to be replaced.
The first batch of paving to be removed, some 250m2 on George Street’s Farmers Block, is being re-used by DCC departments and contractors.
The second batch, some 1000m2 from George Street’s Golden Block, is expected to be available from around February 2023. Applications to receive pavers from this section closed on 23 October.
More information about the project is online at www.dunedin.govt.nz/totally-georgeous.