AESTHETICALLY pleasing upgrades have begun around Tea Gardens’ Myall Quays shopping precinct, the façades and features of which had been wearied by time.

“After writing to Prosper Group, the property manager for the shops area, since July, we later learnt that an audit had been completed, and contractors were being located,” a spokesperson for the Hawks Nest Tea Gardens Progress Association told NOTA.

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“The area is our largest gateway shopping precinct and in a degenerating state that requires redress and we will continue to advocate for improvements.”

Prosper’s spokesperson, Alex Henderson, informed NOTA that work has been limited by the lack of availability of trades locally.

“We would love to use locals, but have been somewhat unsuccessful in that, however, works are proceeding now,” Mr Henderson explained.

“It was originally aimed to be done by last year and we didn’t want the delay, either.”

So far, the trees have been pruned, garden beds re-woodchipped, and timber bed-dividers have been cleaned or replaced, new plants put in and general maintenance underway.

Several shiny, new picnic benches also line the mall before the post office, replacing the old, rotted, weather-worn park benches.

“We know how that property should present, and want to get it back to the way it should be – this is just the start, we’ve got further plans,” Mr Henderson explained.

“The Progress Association has offered to help with the garden, sourcing and paying for ground cover plants, etc.”
HNTGPA spokesperson said.

“We have also offered to assist with restoring the Dolphin Pond – it is the entry point to town and the shops.”

Where a fountain once showered gracefully diving silver dolphins, now the pitifully corroded cetaceans, gasp in the weed-choked reeds and murky mire, and the fountain has not worked for years.

The ownership of the Dolphin Pond, however, is a complex, shared situation that appears to have no easy pathway to action, but both Prosper and HNTGPA are keen to get the owners onboard for some beautification out front, too.

By Thomas O’KEEFE