Spring Clean Toolkit

Springtime is the best time to take a deep breath, shake off the winter drab, and embrace the optimism of brighter days.

This October, we’re throwing out the challenge for businesses, property owners, infrastructure providers, and the community to come together and spruce up our city and make it really sparkle.

In October 2024, Make/Shift Spaces had a roaring success with the first Spring Clean campaign. Contributions included cleaning, painting, water blasting, graffiti-removal, planting, artwork creations and general spring clean transformations.

The campaign encouraged inner-city businesses to self-generate spring clean projects. These included:

• Nikau Hauora Hub replanting their courtyard and giving their outdoor furniture a lick of paint
• NEL cleaning up their electricity boxes, and then approaching Make/Shift Spaces about commissioning some artists – resulting in six mini murals around the city
• RMM Landscape Architects planting edibles in a roadside garden bed in Halifax St
• Graffiti Blasters scrubbing away tags on a building in Montgomery Square, and installing massive B&W photos of old-timey cyclists
• Angel Gardeners planting hardy perennials at the bus station
• NCC workers giving some of their own time to wash the bicycle rack out the front of Civic House

The main drive for Spring Clean 2025 is to once again put the onus on businesses and property owners to show some gumption, slap on some elbow grease, and spruce up our town. Like tried-and-tested clean-up campaigns for parks and beaches, Spring Clean 2025 knows the potential of groups coming together with a shared objective.

“In 2025, Spring Clean Whakatū Nelson is about tapping into the sense of ownership that people have for our city,” says Brian Riley, Chair of the What If Whakatū Nelson Community-led Taskforce. “It’s about challenging property owners and inner-city users to take some inspiration of the springtime season and do something that has a positive effect on the overall presentation and usability of our city.”

“Alongside a general clean-up, we all know that gardens and artworks have a massive impact on how a city is used, encouraging people to stay longer, whether it’s to take a breather on a seat next to a garden, or to seek out the city’s numerous murals and public artworks.”

“The more vibrant an environment, the more likely people are to use it.”

In 2025, plans are well underway with commitments from key stakeholders to support the project, including Nelson City Council, Nelson Chamber of Commerce and Uniquely Nelson, drawing on their networks and experience.

To celebrate the campaign, there will be a Pop-Up Multicultural Market at the top of Trafalgar Street, with food stalls, music and entertainment, arts and crafts. Saturday 18 October, 3.30-8.00pm.

As well as the self-generated projects, Make/Shift Spaces is organising a team of Angel Gardeners to refresh and replant some of the city’s garden beds. As part of their ongoing projects, there will be more ArtDoors installed, and plans are in place for more ArtWorks (mini-murals) around the city. Make/Shift also operates Graffiti Blasters, a service for property owners who need to eliminate graffiti or tagging.

Nelson is a beautiful city that gets regular upkeep from Nelson City Council, including road sweeping and rubbish collection. The Spring Clean campaign is about putting in some extra effort for big results.