Mark Batchelor
Matua
Avenues clarification
F. Gardner's suggestion (Letters, August 9) that 70 per cent of ratepayers want the Avenues pathway project to be progressed needs qualifying.
Seventy per cent of the very small proportion of Tauranga ratepayers who responded to a Tauranga City Council survey supported further investigation of a project that was pitched in the survey as having numerous benefits and no drawbacks.
It is not credible that 70 per cent of ratepayers would support any plan to impose hugely expensive infrastructure upon the natural environment especially on low-lying and vulnerable coastal land.
F. Gardner writes that ratepayers remember at election time those councillors who voted against continuing to cost the project or contact them to establish their rationale.
But, conversely, many ratepayers will vote for councillors who are likely to exercise fiscal responsibility, show concern for the environment, respect ratepayers' property rights and treat all of Tauranga's communities with compassion.
R. Rimmer
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