Owner Sally Ching estimates she had seen more than 6000 cars use her car park to turn around in the last 18 months since safety work on one of Christchurch’s most dangerous intersections began.
She says the safety work on the Riccarton, Middleton and Ilam Rds intersection was needed, but the impact on her business has been immense.
The new intersection design means drivers can not turn right onto Riccarton Rd from Middleton Rd. Instead many will turn left, then right into Ching’s double entranceway, do a U-turn and turn back out onto Riccarton Rd heading towards Westfield.
To begin with, she had 40-50 cars turning around daily but that had since steadied at five to 15. One of those cars belonged to the city council.
Ching and her staff used to go out and talk to the people who made U-turns but she had since stopped, having experienced abuse and threats.
“Not everyone, but just enough to make you feel uncomfortable.”
They replied that it “would get better.”
Since then, Ching’s correspondence with the city council has grown to 28-pages long.
The emails were all “very sympathetic and [promised] the world, but 18 months later, I’m still waiting for something to happen.”
Everyone had agreed there was an issue, but Ching said things seemed to have stalled since the project manager told her they would not leave the problem alone until it was resolved in September.
“Unless I’ve been constantly annoying them, there has been no communication,” she said.
“They now seem to think that it has been resolved because they can’t do anything about it, whereas, because I see it every day, it hasn’t been resolved at all.”
“As much as this is my business, this is my home as well.”
For Ching, one of her biggest priorities is health and safety, which the city council had not addressed in their correspondence, she says.
Not only had two staff members nearly been knocked over, but a car came close to hitting a pram and someone knocked a child off their bike as they rode along the footpath.
“My guests have the right to be in the car park and to be safe because they pay for that right.”
In August last year, a sign labeled “no u-turn, motel use only” and judder bars were installed at her motel but Ching said they barely made a difference.
Temporary signs on Middleton Rd had no effect and neither did the no U-turn signs placed on the Riccarton Rd median strip.
They had to be redone because a car knocked them over by doing a U-turn.
City councillor, and mayoral hopeful, Phil Mauger, went out to visit her and suggested to either put double yellow lines down the middle of the road or flexi-poles in the driveway to deter drivers.
In the past months, Ching said there had been a lot of discussions but no results yet.
A couple of weeks ago, she received an email from a staff member at the council that said there was nothing else they could do and she had rejected every suggested solution which she said was not true.
Ching was open and willing to try more suggestions but said no one but Mauger had been out to see her.
“At least he came out and tried, and the community board came out a couple of weeks ago and were horrified,” she said.
She was also told numerous visits had been made to her motel.
“I was told I was not allowed to contact the council staff ... and all correspondence had to go through the office of the [chief executive] which I still continue to do.”
