Invercargill Mayor Tom Campbell is urging people to stay away from the closed because of safety concerns. Photo: INVERCARGILL CITY COUNCIL

Invercargill Mayor Tom Campbell says the city’s centrepiece, Queens Park, will probably take years to return to what it once was.

Campbell is yet to be officially sworn in as mayor, but he has been handed a State of Emergency to welcome him following a 170km wind gust on Thursday that has left a trail of destruction.

Campbell noted that in the urban parts of the city, power supply was fine, water was fine, and people could get back to their normal lives.

But his biggest concern is the state of the city’s parks and reserves, in particular Queens Park, and the safety risks that come with that.

“I still see people walking around there. We don’t have a way to keep them out. Queens Park is too big, but that is the biggest concern I’ve got is that someone will end up getting crushed by a tree.

“Stay away,” Campbell said.

Campbell did not have any idea of timeframes but acknowledged Queens Park will be closed for “quite a while”.

“It’s hard to see how you could open it again at the moment.”

Campbell added that while there were hundreds of trees down at Queens Park, with every tree that had fallen, there was probably another tree that was damaged and would also come down.

“It is going to take a long cleanup. It’s going to be weeks and months, and realistically, to get Queens Park back to where it was is probably years.

“These trees are 100-year-old trees, so Queens Park is going to look a lot different.”

Campbell acknowledged there would be lessons to come from it around the council’s tree management.

“Some of these trees we knew were going to have to come down anyway. When trees get to a certain age, it is probably better that they come down.

“Everyone likes trees, so people don’t want them to come down; everyone wants to hang on to them as long as possible.

“I think this has been a lesson to us, and when we come through this, we will need to think about the strategy of tree management again.”

Campbell is just relieved there had been no deaths, and he was eager for people to adhere to the safety messages to ensure that remains the case.

“These videos with a car in front and a car in the back and a tree dissecting them. It is the biggest risk we face.

“Everything else, in the urban part of the city, power supply is fine, water is fine, people can get back to their normal life, just don’t walk through Queens Park.”