Food for thought
Recently CCS Disability Action was able to register with the Nelson Environment Centre’s food rescue initiative.
Each week an allocation of food, which is no longer saleable but quite safe for eating, is made available for us to distribute amongst the families and individuals we support.
Although only up and running for a short time this enterprise has already had a positive impact for people.
One service user was thrilled to be able to purchase some winter clothing as their fruit, vegetable and bread costs were able to be reduced allowing some spare money for other essentials. Another now has a volunteer role within the centre helping to collect and distribute the food and gaining employment skills.
Congratulations Nelson Environment Centre on such a worthwhile community enterprise. shows Nelson region sunk 20mm after Kaikoura earthquake,’’ transport planning in Nelson must address the real threat of sea level rise.
This has been amplified recently with reports of surprising glacial melting, such as Greenland’s Petermann Glacier, that would increase seas 500mm quickly. Political solutions are increasingly remote.
Proposed highway routes through Nelson’s central valley will be under water long before Rocks Road. As shown when tides flood Gloucester and St.Vincent streets, Rocks Road is built about 1500mm higher than the central Nelson Southern Link.
In keeping with economical transport solutions, NZTA budgeted the Rocks Road Esplanade, a set of pedestrian/ cycling improvements that would also protect the road from storm spray. Mayor Rachel Reese and MP Nick Smith should encourage NZTA to complete the Esplanade independent of Southern Link expectations. Considering budget realities, government has few other options to improve access to the Waterfront, & the Great Taste Trail cycling network. Borrowing from Robert Frost, something there is that doesn’t love a hedge. This one is on the Kapiti Coast, where neighbours have primed the local council to chop it back – when it would look hideous – or chop it down and join the dull mediocrity that makes so many people happy.
It is a giant macrocarpa hedge, and I have always admired it. Further off, in the posher part of Waikanae, they have camellias and rhododendrons and iceberg roses by the mile, but at the sandy end there is the hedge that after 80 years needs to come down. In case. Just in case.
I greatly admire Vince Osborne and his family, who have over many years created a thick, undulating wall of greenery that is a landmark on the coast; that and the three crosses that rise up outside someone else’s place.
The wooden crosses don’t have to go, though goodness knows someone will soon argue that they offend Muslims, and I’m glad, because they remind me of Louisiana, where there’s a little church every few miles, and fat cops sprawl with their legs up on porch rails, gun at the ready. In case. In case has a lot to answer for.
The hedge is about 70 metres long and as wide as a bus. After 80 years you would be. Its owners have tended it beautifully, so that it is a continuous, soft, deep green, and now the – some – neighbours want it gone. In case someone, possibly a child, gets hit by a car because the hedge projects over a hypothetical footpath. There will always be neighbours. You’re lucky if you get good ones.
If death or injury could have been blamed on the hedge already you may be sure it would have been destroyed. But the fact that it hasn’t happened suggests that people look where they’re going, and drivers can see people out of their car windows.
I don’t believe I amalone in admiring the hedge. It is a visual high point of the drive around the