Letters: Fine article on yachting tragedy allows us to share in grief

Pamela Pedersen and Stuart Pedersen. Photo / File

Please thank your reporter Kiri Gillespie for the very fine and moving article she wrote about the tragic yachting event last week.

We were privileged to read of the experienced local sailing team who sailed happily across the Pacific and when close to home all hell broke loose. We couldn't help but feel the horror of the situation as the breaking terrifying waves raged their destruction on the sailors and their yacht.

What also was inspiring was the bravery of the sailors and how they coped, and the way emergency services ignored the horrifying conditions and rescued all four of them.

Alas, Stuart Pedersen didn't make it out alive. Even then the community continued to care and our own former mayor Greg Brownless drove north to bring his good friend home.

We do live in a very caring community, and it is so good when we have such talented reporters like Kiri, who can share such events with us all, and give us a chance to share in the grief for all concerned, but also the chance to admire the quality of our emergency services.

Our hearts go out to the Pedersen family and the loss of a very special man, Stuart Pedersen.

Thank you, Bay of Plenty Times.

Margaret Murray-Benge,
Tauranga

Perfectly good underpass in place

The Bay of Plenty Times published a letter (October 22) about providing a shuttle bus to take cyclists and pedestrians across the Bayfair roundabout instead of an underpass.

Does the correspondent know that there is currently a perfectly good underpass in place providing easy access between both sides of SH2 at the Bayfair roundabout which can be used at any time of the day with no waiting required?

Our request is that this is maintained after the new roading works are completed. NZTA made the call to remove the existing underpass and not replace it. This was based on nebulous reasoning and no acknowledgement of the future requirements of the greater Tauranga community.

The current underpass will need extending on the Matapihi side. The new roading where this will be built has lain empty and unused for the past three months. In this time the underpass extension should have been built.

The costs to build a replacement underpass are debatable and extraordinarily high. The cost of replacement is to the Government, not Tauranga City Council.

Philip Brown
Bayfair Underpass Alliance

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