The following letter was sent to the Press Editor by the Historic Places Canterbury Chair Mark Gerrard.

The letter was published in The Press under the headline "Why change our beautiful, popular Victorian Sq".

Sir

Last Sunday (18th January) I was in the Central City and ventured down to Christchurch’s award winning and much loved Victoria Square. There amongst the 43 trees were a number of Christchurch residents enjoying the refuge
from what was a classic still, hot dry Christchurch Summer day. There is no doubt Victoria Square is a real, living example of a successful design that sets a standard our future City CBD must aspire to. How can the potential removal of any of these 43 trees, the moving of the Heritage listed Bowker Fountain and the destruction of the current Victoria Square qualify as “Earthquake Recovery”? Why is this a priority project for CERA/CCDU when there is so much more important and real earthquake recovery work to be done in the CBD?
Kind Regards

Mark Gerrard
Chair Historic Places Canterbury

Note the above is the text of the letter sent to The Press. The Press does on occasion edit letters to the Editor and the letter has not been cross checked with the one published in the Press to ascertain if any changes were made.