Letters: Cost of upgrade has not been blown out

The intersection of Tarawera Rd and Long Mile Rd.

There is no budget overrun or doubling of costs for the Whakarewarewa forest development project as was incorrectly suggested by Tracey McLeod in her letter of June 7.

Rotorua Lakes Council committed to a total investment of $7.5m in this project as part of its 2018-28 long-term Plan (LTP). No additional council funds have been committed to this development.

Another $7m the project attracted from the Government's Provincial Growth Fund is additional to the council's $7.5m commitment.

The development would have been scaled back had the PGF application been unsuccessful.

This project will improve facilities already popular with thousands of locals and visitors who enjoy a variety of activities in the forest.

It is also intended to provide the foundations to encourage future commercial investment for the benefit of the district as a whole.

To clarify another matter: The March 2018 long-term plan special edition of the council's Tatau Tatau magazine to which your letter writer referred was an abbreviated version of a consultation and engagement document outlining proposals for inclusion in the LTP.

It was not, as the letter suggested, the finalised LTP but a document produced to encourage feedback on proposals.

The final LTP was adopted in June 2018 and is available to the public on the council's website.

People interested in finding out the facts about key projects and wanting to keep up to date with the progress of these, are also welcome to visit the Vision to Action/key projects area on the council's website, which can be accessed via the home page.

Jean-Paul Gaston
Strategy Group Manager, Rotorua Lakes Council

Welcome one, welcome all

What is this fear of strangers on our shore?

Back in 1950 while working/helping on my uncle's farm in Ontario I also played ice hockey. As a local team we had a Dutch player, Slovac, Hungarian, Russian, Scottish, German, three French Canadians a Swede and, most important, two Native Canucks from the Six Nation Reserve.

All were the sons of local farmers and local business people, they all had their own accents, their own customs and their own food - which made parties and barbecues very special.

A local kid may have mixed parentage - Greek Mother, French father, maybe even a Scottish grandparent.

We all got along just fine, we all knew where we came from, but we all thought of ourselves as Canadians, nothing else.

Okay, I was the son of a Kiwi and always was a Kiwi, but no one asked us why or what brought us to Canada.

We played together, worked together and laughed together. This is what made Canada strong, we had experts in everything from all over the world.

New Zealand can and must be the same, we need the skills, the strength, and the courage of these "Etranges", or it may just as well fold its tents now and creep away.

Jim Adams
Rotorua

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