Dannevirke: Untidy berms irk residents

Dannevirke has never looked so untidy in the 50 years he's lived here, community board member Ernie Christison says.

Mr Christison said he's angry the town is looking scruffy and puts the blame on the shoulders of the Tararua District Council.

"I can't understand why our council didn't take parks and reserves under their own umbrella, [when Infracon collapsed]," Mr Christison said. "Our town's southern entrance which the Dannevirke Lions have worked so hard to beautify is looking dreadful."

Otanga St resident Colin Briskie is also up in arms over the state of berms along his street.

"The new contractor is just mowing a strip off the tarseal and is leaving the rest, which is growing long and untidy," he said. "I've been told by council staff there's not enough money allocated to do this. I suggested to council's chief executive Blair King that surely he'd like to see our town kept tidy because it doesn't make any sense to me when the berm has been mowed properly by the previous contractor. King suggested it would be done if I'd like to pay for it. But we pay rates already.

"The amount of time and petrol needed to mow our strip fully would be nothing. It would only take a cup of petrol. What's being done now is pointless."

Kathy Dever Tod, manager of the council's asset group, told the Dannevirke News the previous contractor had been mowing more than he'd been paid to.

Mr King confirmed this and said under the council's alliance roading contract mowing for safety reasons, ie, at intersections, was acceptable, as is the case on the corner of Otanga Rd, but there was no funding from NZTA for mowing for aesthetic reasons.

"What some people seem to want is for us to mow fence-to-fence as regularly as they mow their own lawns," he said.

And Mr King said the number of fires starting from the roadside in urban areas is not an issue.

"Mowing the roadside strip means a fire isn't likely to start from a car exhaust but is more likely to be malicious and you can't prevent that whether you mow or not," he said. "Yes, if an entire section is overgrown and puts properties at risk we'll take action."

With the rating demands on Dannevirke's 5500 residents and two mowing crews already at work, Mr King said the council has to have priorities. "If a stock truck was having difficulty getting through a section of bad road, it would make economic sense to spend money on the road, providing economic benefit for the trucking company, the farmer, the meat works and our community," he said.