Shelter ‘fix’ scrapped

Plans to ‘‘fix’’ a $285,000 bus shelter with a hole in its roof by making the hole a glass skylight were scrapped to protect the shelter’s design philosophy.

Blenheim’s prized bus shelter officially opened in late 2017, but its design quickly drew the critique of New Zealanders across the country.

A picture of the giant opening in the roof above the outdoor seating area was seen by more than 200,000 people on Facebook in the days following the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The hole, designed by an architect, represented the Ma¯ ori name for the Wairau Valley, ‘Kei puta te Wairau’, which translated to ‘the place with the hole in the sky’ or ‘the place with the hole in the cloud’.

The council publicly defended the ‘‘art installation’’ design, but behind closed doors councillors discussed a $20,000 add-on.

A council spokeswoman said councillors discussed putting a glass sheet over the shelter’s hole in a public-excluded workshop about 18 months ago, but ‘‘discarded’’ the issue.

‘‘The design philosophy was explained, including the fact that the bus shelter features a roofed area, as well as an open top area, and there was no further interest in the topic from councillors,’’ she said.

The council could not provide a run down of the discussion, as the workshop was not a formal meeting, so no minutes were As biodiversity in the Marlborough Sounds declines, some question whether marine farms should be getting 35-year resource consents.

More than half the region’s marine farms have to renew their consents in the next five years, and the Resource Management Act allows both coastal and landbased activities to apply for up to 35 years’ consent.

New Zealand King Salmon has applied for consent to add an extra four pens to its Waitata Reach salmon farm in the outer Pelorus Sound / Te Hoiere, which already has consent until 2049.

But Friends of Nelson Haven committee member Rob Schuckard said granting 35-year consents to marine farms was unwise considering how quickly biodiversity was deteriorating in the Sounds.

Schuckard is a former mussel farmer who lived in the outer Pelorus Sound/te Hoiere and worked as an independent researcher, advising groups and agencies and providing expert evidence about marine farm effects in five Environment Court cases.

The society often submitted on marine farm consents, calling for protection of the environment to be prioritised due to uncertainty about the cumulative effects of commercial activity in the Sounds.

‘‘There are more and more of these activities taking place in the environment of declining