What Gisborne people are thinking

Streets for People work under way: Road markings show changes to the layout in Grey St at the Kahutia St intersection in Gisborne. Photo / Liam Clayton

Opinion

Who plays the fiddle while our city burns?

I feel it is time to refocus on some activities of the city administration and their practical commercial effect on the future of our community. I worry that this letter will prejudice my business interaction with affected parties and have decided that regardless. I need to speak out in the best interest of achieving sound economic and commercial outcomes for community expenditure.

I believe the granting of a resource consent to restrict key city commercial access roads such as Grey St and Kahutia St to road users is a gross misuse of the Resource Management Act by our city administrators.

This intersection is a key route that provides efficient, safe access east to west for commercial premises within our city, and emergency service access to State Highway 35/Awapuni Rd.

The utter lack of auditable consultation by consent authorities with private and, most importantly, commercial road users is in my view a provocative and serious misuse of their authority.

Pedestrians and tourists alike have wide, unobstructed footpaths available in the area for their responsible use, without risking their own or other road users’ safety. And the facilities they patronise should, like any commercial operators in the city, provide their own safe off-street parking for patrons to ensure compliance with council planning regulations.

Perhaps it is time for ratepayers and city business folk to call in administrators with the power to audit and control whimsical spending by a seemingly uncontrollable element within our city administration.

Alternatively, let’s just keep on allowing this fiddling with our heritage and avoidance of key infrastructure maintenance expenditure. Let’s just follow so many other once-vibrant locally owned shopkeepers and core business operators who used to provide key employment to residents and their families, and allow our city to revert to an unmanageable circus.

Trevor Jukes

Guess it’s the digital age

I am sooo sorry to read of the closure of the Gisborne Herald front office.

I was extremely fortunate to have worked there for many, many years in the advertising department. I loved every day of it and made many long-term friends, from workmates to customers.

I guess the “digital age” has seen and will see many more closures like this.

Thank you Michael and family for an amazing, happy time for many years.

Sharon McGrory (nee Bailey)

Touted, yet to be resolved

It is coming up five years since a certain sestercentennial — is it too much to ask council why projects touted for the time still remain to be resolved?

I refer to the Bridge to Nowhere by the Cook obelisk, and the asbestos-tainted mounds by the Waikanae Creek mouth, among other unfinished work.

Yes, Gabrielle came along, but surely the council should have sorted these matters by now, before starting any more unwanted works like the Grey St makeover.

Then, dare I mention it, there is the matter of the two replacement Endeavour models, one of which was supposed to go to Tolaga Bay.

Roger Handford

CO2 levels over three generations

At the beginning of the 19th century, Joseph Ferrier proved beyond doubt that CO2 was a greenhouse gas warming the planet.

My great-great-grandfather, the Rev Joseph Patterson, was a Presbyterian minister in Wem, a market town in Shropshire, England. When he was born in 1800, atmospheric levels of CO2 were 282 parts per million. By the time of his untimely death from pneumonia in 1866, levels were 287ppm — a rise of 5ppm during his lifetime.

When our dad, Stanley Hamilton Hughes (Skip), was born in 1901, CO2 levels were 296ppm; when he died in 1974, 327ppm — an increase of 31ppm during his lifetime.

Myself, Robert Hughes (Bob) — when I was born in 1932, CO2 levels were 308ppm. Yet today’s Manua Loa reading is 427.89 — an increase of near enough to 120ppm during my lifetime.

We have a 1-year-old great-grandson — if the CO2 levels continue to rise at the present rate, heaven help him.

CO2 levels will continue to increase if we continue to expel greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at our present rate.

Bob Hughes

How many accidents?

Re: Work on Grey St changes under way in Gisborne, May 8 story.

“The trial project aims to make the area of the street from Kahutia St to just south of the skatepark safer.” Can we see an existing safety report for the area of change, please? How many accidents in the past 10 years, for example? Nature of those accidents?

Planter boxes, like any concrete barriers, increase the risk of injuries, especially for cyclists.

Road art for safety? Give us a break. Any artwork worth paying attention to, on the street, increases the risk of distraction and accidents.

I think the trial time for this project is over. People have seen enough to say no to it.

Respect people’s wishes and stop wasting any more taxpayer and ratepayer money. Not to mention wasting their time and further financial damage to existing businesses.

Simin Williams

Driven by parents

The article in the Gisborne Herald highlighted “Grey Street is an area frequented by children on their way to the skatepark, pump park, the beach or Kiwa Pools”.

I concede some would use their skateboards for the skatepark and pump park, but 95 per cent of the children going to the beach or the Kiwa Pools would be travelling in motor vehicles mostly driven by their parents,

Trevor Mills