Letters: Farewell to a great football character

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The C.T. Club last week celebrated the life of Neil 'Peanut' Shaw who had recently passed away. Neil had been one of the great characters of the NZ football scene.

He was a Scotsman who enjoyed his wee dram or two, was an avid Rangers fan - and God help anyone wearing green (Celtic).

For many years Rotorua football clubs had many ex-pats popularising the sport and after match get-togethers, and Neil can take much of the credit for the advancement of the local game. Sadly, the old boys are dying off and those remaining are well into their 60s. Neil always insisted that Slim Jim Baxter, the Rangers' wing half, was the best of his era. He is sadly missed.

Cheers Neil and God bless.

CLIVE PHILLIPS
Rotorua

Government's cheap loans for councils (to build infrastructure for new housing developments) is a waste of money and time: at least as far as benefiting first home buyers.

Why?

Baby boomers and their offspring have an insatiable lust for riches and they love to buy as many houses as they can, to satisfy their desire for trips to the islands, Venice, Alaska and so on.

Meanwhile, the poor old millennials are doomed to forever be in debt, live in exorbitantly expensive, rundown flats and to exist on handouts from mum and dad who are living in luxury off their rents.

So it is that all the extra housing will be swallowed up on easy terms by professional, semi-retired house investors (to be cunningly let to their debt-burdened kids in unofficial related-party agreements).

The only answer to greed is regulation: the millennials will probably vote in some pollies who will promise draconian laws that restrict home-ownership to one-a-piece: and who can blame them? Currently, millennials are hurting: they may decide that somebody else should hurt too.

GJ PHILIP
Rotorua

We would like to clarify the process being undertaken to develop a spatial plan for Rotorua following an article in your paper [Proposed spatial plan draws 19 submissions, July 14].

Your report from this week's Strategy, Policy & Finance Committee meeting stated "only 19 formal submissions were lodged to the council's Spatial Plan Discussion Document, it has been revealed".

This suggested that a) there had been a formal process and b) information regarding submissions had not been disclosed. Neither is correct.

We have not yet had formal consultation on development of a spatial plan and no formal submissions.

Informal consultation, based on a discussion document aimed at generating discussion, resulted in written feedback from 19 people or groups, feedback from 1000 who attended 56 workshops around the district and provided feedback verbally or through exercises conducted during the workshops, plus online feedback.

All feedback was collated into overall themes and messages to be used to develop a draft plan.

The draft plan will go out to formal consultation later this year when formal submissions will be invited and will be followed by hearings before final decisions are made.

The spatial plan will set out how we want our district to look in future, where development should occur, what kind and how much.

Information is available at council's online engagement hub Let's Talk - Korero Mai via www.rotorualakescouncil.nz - go to 'current consultations' on the home page. Formal consultation is to come but we welcome further informal feedback via email (letstalk@rotorualc.nz).

JEAN-PAUL GASTON
Strategy Group Manager, Rotorua Lakes Council