Letters: Wayne Brown’s harbour bridge plan astray; building better dwellings in Auckland

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown. Photo / Dean Purcell

OPINION

Harbour bridge plan wildly astray

Mayor Wayne (I’m an engineer you know) Brown is wildly astray with his promotion of a new harbour bridge founded on top of Meola Reef.

What he obviously does not realise is that the reef consists of a layer of basalt rock just 5-10m thick resting on 60m of gloop – very soft marine sediments with negligible bearing strength. Any structure constructed here would require a lot of very deep piles resting on the bedrock far beneath.

So rather than the narrowest part of the harbour as he imagines, the reef is actually located at one of the widest parts. In addition to the 3.8km crossing from Kauri Point to Meola Road, his new bridge would require about 10km of new motorway through suburbs like Birkenhead, Glenfield, and Point Chevalier, trashing hundreds of homes and hectares of parkland in its way.

This idea is not new, having been suggested and rejected several times since 1974.

Graeme Easte, former Auckland City councillor.

Better dwellings

The conditions proposed in Auckland Council’s plan change 79 all seem sensible in that they will go some way towards making intensive housing safer and more convenient and pleasant to live in (NZ Herald, Sept 12).

John Dare prioritises the number of houses built and the cost to developers. He proposes that the implementation of the plan change will result in urban sprawl.

There are better ways to prevent this, for example looking at population growth and genuine regional development, and better protection of green and horticultural areas.

I have lived in Auckland all my life and the relatively recent housing developments have made the city a less pleasant place to live. There are many new dwellings in my area alone in which I am sure John would not want to live – even with his phone light.

The developer-driven calls for smaller, more cramped, less convenient, less pleasant houses continues. We deserve better.

Our representatives in the council are at least showing some consideration of what these blocks of dwellings will be like to live in.

David McMahon, Sunnyvale.

Doctor’s despair

It’s a sad indictment on our healthcare system when an experienced hospital specialist in general medicine, Dr Art Nahill, has taken early retirement because, ”I can no longer bear to patch people up, only to discharge them back to the same toxic environments, unhealthy lifestyles and ineffective health systems, waiting for them to get sick again”. (NZ Herald, Sept 13).

In his opinion-writing, Nahill put forward some interesting ideas on how to create a ”health system not to treat disease but rather to promote health and wellbeing” and gave examples of how this could work by creating a new kind of health workforce.

While this certainly has merits, and education to promote health and wellbeing would undoubtedly benefit many communities, whether the overall result would be a reduction of our GPs’ workload or the number of people turning up at the hospital A&E is doubtful.

Lorraine Kidd, Warkworth.

Democracy in action

There has been a lot of to and froing in the news about the fact National will not let the Treaty Principles Bill past the select committee stage.

To save what is now degenerating into a farce, why doesn’t National simply say it is happy with a conscience vote in Parliament on this issue?

This would allow all National MPs to voice their opinions. And it is much more democratic than MPs simply towing the National Party line.

And before everyone throws up their arms in horror, this is quite a common practice in the United Kingdom. In the case of the Brexit referendum, many MPs looked at the results for their electoral area. And voted for or against Brexit accordingly.

If that meant “crossing the floor”, then those MPs willing to do so went against the Tory party line and voted according to the referendum results in their area.

Now that’s democracy in action.

Michael Walker, Blockhouse Bay.

Cry me a river

I find it a crack-up when famous people get caught out breaking the law and then they subsequently turn into some sort of a crusader.

Like Justin Timberlake, instead of just allowing himself to be breathalysed when he caught police attention by driving erratically, including going through a stop sign and failing to stay in his lane. Then, when stopped by police, he refused a breathalyser test.

This meant the police officer had to appear in court to explain his erratic driving, his failing to stop at a stop sign and glassy, bloodshot eyes. He was still fined, plus ordered to complete 90 days of community service and lost his licence for 90 days.

But then he turns into a crusader with the public statement: “Even if you’ve had one drink, don’t get behind the wheel of a car.”

We don’t – you did, Justin. And we would follow police instructions to be breathalysed when asked as well.

Colleen Wright, Botany Downs.