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Hyperspace express route
There is a scene early in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in which Arthur Dent awakes to find his home in the West Country of England about to be demolished. Just then a Vogon bureaucrat announces over a global PA system that a new Hyperspace Express Route is being built through his star system and that Earth is among those “scheduled for demolition”. Much shrieking and panic ensues.
“There is no point in acting all surprised about it,” counters Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz in a plodding, dull tone over the PA. “The plans and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning office in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your earth years.”
The Vogon functionary scolds the backlash.
“If you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local planning affairs of such a bloody planet I have no sympathy at all.”
I don’t regularly offer book or movie reviews in this column, but Douglas Adam’s 1979 story (2005 movie) has been clanging around my brain since learning of Shire Hall’s plans to extend George Wright Boulevard (GWB) into a Hyperspace Express Route. On paper, this means bulldozing through homes and private property on the west side of Picton.
From the Wendy’s restaurant on the west side of town, the GWB Express Route is set to extend south across land owned by No Frills—who have no intention of selling— before swinging westward toward Sandy Hook, intersecting the southern extension of County Road 1, extending across Ridge Road before connecting with County Road 22 (or as most folks know it, Airport Road) up to Base31. Most of it is private property. Places folks call home.
Residents in the pathway of the GWB Express Route began receiving notices late last year with maps showing the new planned road. Much shrieking and panic ensued.
Shire Hall has assured in a weary tone that these are long-term plans. Nothing is imminent. Wrecking balls aren’t scheduled to start knocking down homes in the path of progress. It might not be built for decades. Or ever.
But here is the thing. Council knew none of this. Council has not reviewed or discussed these plans nor have they offered an opinion regarding their feasibility.
This bears repeating: Shire Hall is forging grandiose and forever plans to remake a part of Picton—to the extent of potentially evicting and expropriating homes in which folks live and were minding their own business— and doing so without input from its elected municipal officials. Some, if not all, council members learned of these plans from residents fearing the County was coming to smash their homes.
When Council is rendered a bystander in the grand reshaping of the County, where does it leave the rest of us? Our elected leaders have become apologists and explainers of plans they didn’t initiate or comprehend.
They have debased their role to promote the catechism of Shire Hall. In this instance, the dogma is that a wave of new homebuilding is set to deluge and transform this place. They no longer question the premise. Or implications. Or costs.
Shire Hall sees Council’s role as guarding the walls from the barbarians—the folks who must endure their decisions.
The prospect of thousands of new homes was always wild fanciful thinking, highly unlikely and untethered from the County’s history and demography. But with each passing year, it is increasingly evident that no such transformation is underway. Nor is it likely to happen. Fewer homes were built in 2024 than the year before. And fewer than the year before that. And so on.
Yet plans proceed apace for the GWB Express Route. For pipelines between Wellington and Picton. For massive debt spending.
Don’t panic.
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