Tolerton on Wednesday: Boating facilities a disgrace to city | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

I must go down to the sea again, said Masefield. But the poet would have quickly changed his mind had he chosen Lyttelton to sniff the briny.

Stroll the seafront in Auckland, Wellington, or Sydney, or indeed most New Zealand ports, and it's a delight for the visitor.

But Christchurch boaties, yachties, and fishermen, not to mention families just wanting to get close to the harbour on a Sunday drive, are confronted by a moonscape that looks like an abandoned off-road race track when they go to the Lyttelton reclamation.

Pot holes, mountains of soil, and rubbish. A dust bowl when it's dry, and muddy when it's wet.

Its centrepiece, the public slip, is a deteriorating facility that is hugely overcrowded at peak times.

This to serve a metropolitan area of 350,000 or so people.

Recreational water users deserve better, and have only to look at the seafronts in most other towns ? and what the council has spent at New Brighton ? to know just how grim their facilities are.

There is huge potential to turn the reclamation into an attractive precinct, and developers have been sniffing about it for some time.

But before thinking about letting any apartment blocks and flash restaurants go up one day, the priority for the council should be to provide decent facilities for the recreational users ? adequate slips with good parking, sealed roads, and some attractive landscaping for a start.

The good news is the area is so shabby that a design team can start from scratch unrestricted.

Yachties have waited nearly seven years for hints of progress since the October 2000 storm wiped out their marina.

In the past the city council threw up its hands when the shambles at Lyttelton was mentioned, pointing out it was outside its territorial boundaries, even though most users were from the city.

But the Banks Peninsula-Christchurch council merger has certainly not galvanised it into addressing the issue now that it is its responsibility.

Surprisingly, there does not seem to be an organisation for recreational boaties and fishermen to lobby for improvements to their facilities.

The Naval Point Club, which has nearly 900 members, averages two new members a week from the ranks of ordinary boaties frustrated with the state of the public facilities.

The city council has been bandying about plans to spend $100 million to replace McTurk Towers on Tuam. It's time the thousands of rate-paying boaties, yachties, and recreational fishermen with an interest in better facilities at Lyttelton put it straight on its priorities.

Until they do it looks as though messing about in boats at Lyttelton is going to stay just messy.

# What do you think of the facilities? Email nick.tolerton@starcanterbury.co.nz and tell us.