Ambiguous message

The Hamilton City Council’s botch-up of the Shaws bird and native tree reserve (Hamilton Press November 14) is just another example of its ambiguous message to everyone to care for our environment.

This includes the Regional Council who spends a fortune on promotional paraphernalia and education programmes promoting the preservation of gullies, native flora and fauna, also the Department of Conservation and Forest and Bird twittering about pest animals destroying our environment and bird life.

Hamilton City Council’s strategic planning needs the ability to grasp the basis that the environment is first and foremost our infrastructure, not where they carve up roads etc.

Development planners need to recognise and embrace its values rather than destroy it.

It goes without saying the Shaw’s bird and native tree reserve would be an invaluable asset as a green space, at a considerable saving to the Council, for the new Peacocke urban sprawl. It is madness and environmental vandalism for council to plough through the Mangakotukutuku Gully and the Shaw’s reserve.

Of course the road can be moved further south where the houses are going to be built. It is commonsense. Put your caring for the environment message into practice yourself Hamilton City Council. Raymond Anderson, Hamilton