Christmas wish list has a bumpy road ahead
ALL we want for Christmas is a repaired and potholefree street.
For the last year the residents of the upper section of Manapouri St in Maia have had to put up with developing potholes, and a botched street repair.
Fair enough that there is a development going ahead at the top of the street, but that has not been the sole reason for the degradation of the road surface.
As a longterm resident, all I have seen in the last 30 years has been a resurfacing with stone chip (once) and localised repairs. In the July school holidays a councilappointed contractor tore part of the road up and badly botched the repair. No the seal was not reinstated. The result: clouds of dust when it’s fine, blocked drains when it’s wet and a road that resembles a third world gutter.
Complaints to council have resulted in a comment that it will attend to it in the first school holidays of 2019, as its contractors are all committed to other works. That is April 19 next year.
Stuff the cycleways and socalled highway improvements. How about doing some maintenance to the existing infrastructure. With new developed properties in the area, there is potential for a great big rates income nest egg for the city.
John Sinclair
Maia
Climate change
I SEE there is now talk (ODT, 7.12.18) of compensation against losses caused by climate change. I’m happy with that, but only as long as there is some sort of statute of limitations. We have known since before the turn of the century climate change is coming. And we’ve known at least since the Stern report in 2006 that the costs of mitigating climate change are far greater than the costs of avoiding it altogether by limiting emissions. Prudent investors, and agencies who have granted consents since that time should have taken this into account. Their ignorance of the science is no excuse. But the final bill should arrive at the doorstep of the ‘‘Merchants of Doubt’’, who paid for disinformation campaigns that fooled them, and allowed the oil and coal industries to prosper since that time.
Richard McKenzie
Alexandra