I would appreciate some explanation of why little or no maintenance is occurring and what the future is for these places.
There are other buildings, privately-owned, that also require attention if we are to call our city "beautiful"- for example, the corner of Ridgway St and Drews Ave (a recent purchase by a councillor whom I feel sure will be renovating them), and an eyesore for years now on Somme Parade, what was St David's Church.
Fiona Donne
Aramoho
Unexplained fires
There have been a number of "unexplained "fires in heritage buildings in the Whanganui central business district over the past few years.
Remember the great fire of Ridgeway St - the whole south side from Drews Ave to Anderson's Menswear was destroyed.
That was around the time central city redevelopment kicked off.
Then there was the Denton building, mid Avenue, which mysteriously ignited prior to the construction of a mall.
Now the latest fire in a building, which admittedly was looking sad and neglected.
If the building was already slated for demolition, perhaps a wrecking crew could have got in and recovered the framing timber, doors and floors. They were, no doubt, constructed of rimu, matai or totara and could have been recycled and sold.
What a sad waste.
Deb Frederikse
Whanganui
Hasty demolition
A long unoccupied house on Victoria Avenue is suddenly, inexplicably and quickly damaged by fire early on a Monday morning.
Then, before an investigation is able to establish the cause, it is demolished on the Tuesday, thus removing any possibility of an explanation.
We are told that the reason for such haste was because the building was "dangerous", which I do not challenge. But I query the haste.
Dangerous fire and earthquake damaged buildings have have remained undemolished for months elsewhere, with Christchurch being an example.
With a representative of the owners being reported as saying that "squatters" had caused problems with the building in the past, the suspicion that a crime was committed surely arises.
Again I ask why such unseemly haste which effectively stopped any investigation from establishing the cause or possibility of a crime?
V W Ballance
Westmere.
Leading hand hygiene
It was disappointing to note a glaring omission in the Chronicle story on November 1 headed "Hospital to push hand hygiene".
The Whanganui District Health Board's press release included a sentence which read: "Our DHB is proud of the fact we consistently lead the country's DHBs when it comes to hand hygiene compliance."
While this might not seem important to the Chronicle, it is important that the public knows this.
It helps our community have confidence in the care our DHB provides and, importantly, it could influence our ability to recruit and retain clinical staff.
I would like to see the Chronicle acknowledge Whanganui DHB's successes in equal measure to the negative stories published about us.
I wonder if this couldn't have been one of the NZME Upbeat stories?
Frank Rawlinson
Chief Medical Officer
Whanganui District Health Board
Institutional corruption
I recommend to Mr Halpin, and all your readers, the Listener editorial, "Mea culpa", of the week October 6-12, which centres on the same hierarchical failures of the Catholic Church relative to sexual predation and perversion as did my letter of October.
Many years have passed since I practised a "trade", but I've already noted the difference between religions and others, namely the institutional corruption of the former.
Most recently the Law Society has responded to internal and public pressure to clean up, and education has long had strict processes to deal with problem staff.
To focus on the Catholic Church as the oldest, probably largest, bastion of Christianity, while recognising similar tendencies in many Protestant sects is hardly "narrow". The claim is absurd.
That said, one must applaud Pope Francis for "defrocking" a senior bishop and a cardinal in South America for their longstanding cover-up activities. But this, I repeat, is to skirt around the fundamental issues.
Russ Hay
Whanganui
