The Waipuna Halswell-Hornby-Riccarton Community Board has been advocating for a fenced dog park in the southwest of Christchurch. Two projects are being proposed to create fenced spaces for dog recreation in this area.

Halswell Quarry Park - dog exercise area

Halswell Quarry Park is a popular community space, used by lots of different groups of people, including people with their dogs. People can exercise their dogs off leash in the ‘dog exercise area’ in Halswell Quarry Park, but it’s not clearly marked.

We’ve received reports of conflicts between dogs and other park users. Dogs have been lost and off leash in other parts of Halswell Quarry, where they should be leashed.

We're proposing a fenced dog exercise area to make it easier for people to understand where the dog exercise area is and to help separate different park users, keeping dogs and people safe.

The fenced dog exercise area will be larger than the current area. It will incorporate the current ‘lower field’ and a new area towards Kennedys Bush Road that will have a new access path from the Cashmere Road car park. It will include bins and drinking fountains.

As part of the wider concept plan for this area of Halswell Quarry Park, we’re also proposing to:

• Allocate an area for forest planting. These areas will be planted by volunteers which will contribute to the Urban Forest Plan’s goal of establishing a network of native forest patches across the city with multiple benefits for the local area and Ōtautahi Christchurch as a whole.
• Create two walking tracks, one inside the dog exercise area and an extension to the accessible track around the outside. These will be staged over time as funding is not currently allocated.

New dog park at a new site

We’re also planning for a new dog park in the southwest of the city, and we’d like to know what features or equipment you would like included.

We're still working on a location for this new dog park but once we’ve confirmed the site and developed a landscape plan, we’ll check back in with the community before the Waipuna Halswell-Hornby-Riccarton Community Board makes a decision.