Strath Taieri residents want cheaper Sutton bridge

RUSHING the design of the Sutton bridge rebuild and increasing the capacity to 65 tonnes to carry fullyladen mining trucks has, unsurprisingly, doubled the cost.

No need to worry. Plaman Resources has already made a verbal offer to the StrathTaieri Community Board to help pay.

Next will be widening and sealing of adjacent roads, enabling 216 mining truck movements, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the next 23 years.

A successful farmstay business will be destroyed and farming activity severely curtailed. Some houses will need to be demolished to make way, the inhabitants forced to relocate, properties deemed worthless. Welcome to the third world.

Would a 20tonne suspension bridge, with a guaranteed 76% NZTA funding, have been a cheaper option, maintained the status quo and kept the community intact?

How this option was removed from the agenda can be viewed on the DCC YouTube channel (1.07.18).

It begs the question — is there anything going on behind the scenes that we don’t know about?

Shane Loader

Middlemarch

[Abridged]

A Wilder Fury

PLEASE give my thanks to whoever subbed the story in your print edition (ODT, 3.10.18) about the altercation between heavyweight boxers Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder.

The heading they chose, ‘‘Tirade from Fury leads to shove from Wilder’’ was inescapably punladen.

Nevertheless, it was clever and creative, and it made me chuckle.

Mark Peart Otago Peninsula

Retired nurses reunion

Retired Dunedin registered nurses are invited to a reunion lunch on Friday, November 2 at the Otago Golf Club, Balmacewen Rd. The lunch will start at noon.

To register, please email regnselunch@xtra.co.nz.

Or text 027 554 4705 or phone Joan on (03) 4544705.