Text the editor
Branches of the past
Recently I was alerted to an article that was in your newspaper a few weeks ago about a grove of trees on the former university campus in Hokowhitu that are likely to be felled [Standard, August 3].
I am one of the group of foundation students of Palmerston North Teachers’ College who planted some of these trees in 1972 on what was then a stopbank. At the same time, we planted one on an adjacent site, in memory of one of the students of our year who had died in a car accident during her first year’s teaching. Other intakes planted memorial trees there later for similar reasons. We, of course, had completed our training at the old Princess St building in 1956-57, but we planted these trees during one of our reunions.
We are upset to hear that our trees will probably be felled. Over the years we have visited the site during our occasional reunions. Some of us have photographs of the day we planted them and some can still identify ‘‘their trees’’.
Wouldn’t it be appealing to the prospective buyers of properties there to have a green belt so close by? As they were planted by former teachers, it seems fitting that children could be playing in this grove of trees.
A tree takes many years to grow and yet it takes a few minutes to cut it down. I hope it won’t be goodbye to the history of this grove and our memories, and that those involved in this process will make a wise decision.
Audrey Ansell
Auckland
Gorge route top priority
Our gorge has got to be regarded as a road of ‘national significance’.
In the meantime, other than exposing the difficulties of the many affected by the closure, all else has gone quiet.
A lack of energetic activity in the form of an action group of prominent citizens keen to put urgent pressure on the decisionmakers at the top is conspicuous by its absence.
Sixteen weeks, just to decide on the options that might be considered, smacks of Third World ability. As we speak, hundreds of people are hurting in a variety of ways. Come on, where is the moral responsibility?
This closure is the biggest thing to ever occur in our region.
The way forward is clear. We must not be timid. The solution must be suitable to cope with the next 100 years.
Nature gave us a fissure through our mountain range. It would reflect badly on our engineering ingenuity if we can’t think outside the square and have to settle for another country hill road.
The road is there and with some lateral thinking can be safely reinstated and improved while leaving the problematical bank side alone. Because of the importance of our gorge, it must be put alongside hundreds and billions being spent elsewhere.
Cost cannot be a factor. Doing it properly is paramount. It will never be cheaper than now.
Byron Husband
Palmerston North ❚ Well, the Aaron Smith story still hasn’t been flushed down the loo. ❚ Yes, the quiz is too hard! Maybe something more in line with the Stuff quiz? ❚ Didn’t take Duffy long to implement secrecy demands at Midcentral DHB. Board elected members now gagged unless they get permission from top dog. ❚ Re jailhouse thug write-up. I sympathised with him and his explanation for shooting up police stations, but not now. ❚ Surely, there must be some better music available than the horrible honky tonky piano version being played with the national anthem at the women’s Rugby World Cup. ❚ I am horrified at how our supermarket dishes out plastic bags with such gay abandon. Very bad. Big Sis ❚ Shame on PN Boys’ High re school ball policy. ❚ Wahoo to College Street Normal School whose year 6 & year 5 won two titles of math inter-school competition. I was a former pupil. ❚ How about all these farmers with their big milking sheds etc? All the water they could catch, only if they had tanks. Instead, wasting it on the ground. mike ❚ Be honest, NZ. You love the housing shortage.
Blue malaise
A healthy society needs balance, of people-friendly, business-friendly and environment-friendly.
Nine years of the Nats have produced a horrible pro-business imbalance, with neo-liberal policies only partly modified by John Key’s political expediency.
Too many people and too much of the environment, for the sake of business-profits, for, all-too-often, overseas-owned businesses.
The rich have enjoyed a brighter future – too bad for the poor.
Over-intensified dairying has already proved an environmental disaster, with drinking-water polluted and making people sick. And now the cows themselves are getting diseased.
Houses to live in have become unaffordable for too many of us. Who cares, so long as speculators are making a buck?
We’ve got to care, before it’s too late.
The Nats are past their ‘‘best before’’ date. Use your vote, against the greedies.
Ring (06) 355 8790 or email editor@msl.co.nz
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John C Ross
Palmerston North