PIHA SKATE PARK
There are a few aspects of the story ‘‘Piha skate park gets green light’’ that need amplifying. The board has provisionally supported the proposal of the Piha Wheels and Water Charitable Trust for them to fund and build a skate park at Piha with a number of conditions. The board supports a facility of ‘‘modest scale’’ catering for children and youth. It does not support such a facility on Piha Domain as it is at capacity and the remaining open areas near the lagoon are needed for day visitors’ carparking and informal recreation. It is also a flood plain and there are heritage sites that must be protected. The board has suggested that Les Waygood Park next to Barnett Hall and the surf club at North Piha may be a better site. The board has also stated that wide community consultation will be needed about the location and design. It is not correct to say the board ‘‘knocked back’’ the earlier proposal from the Piha Kidz Charitable Trust. The board in that case also said the domain was not a suitable location, but we have been working with that trust on alternative locations for recreational facilities for children in the 9-14 age group.
SANDRA CONEY
Waitakere Ranges Local Board
LOYAL TO COFFEE
I am a regular customer of the Muffin Break in New Lynn. My chosen drink is always a large flat white. Recently I was entitled to a free drink and when asked what I would like I said the usual large flat white and only to be told I would need to pay $1.40.
This was much to my surprise as I had never been asked this before. It’s not the $1.40 that concerned me but more that I had not been asked before. Perhaps they had just been adding it to the bill without me noticing. When I got home I sat and read the fine print on the loyalty card and sure enough the free drink only entitled me to a small flat white. However it seems that Muffin Break New Lynn is the only Muffin Break in west Auckland who charges for the a large coffee when a free coffee is available with the loyalty card. I talked to the New Lynn Muffin Break owner about this, despite asking twice he just looked blank and did not respond.
BARRY TWYDLE
New Lynn
DALE THE SPIDER
Re: Catherine Farmer’s comments (13 October) regarding Avondale’s Dale the Spider, and her assertions that there should be a change of icon because ‘‘Avondale is more multi-cultural now’’ and ‘‘maybe something recognising the important Maori history of the Whau would be more suited’’. Really, Catherine? Those factors apparently didn’t come into the consideration undertaken by both you and the Whau Local Board last term when the board rejected a Chinese former landowner’s name for the new reserve on Tiverton Rd (which would have given us the first Chinese name on our map, as part of our multicultural community). On top of that, the board under Catherine’s leadership took Te Kotuitanga, a Maori place name of great importance and associated intimately with Olympic Park, and applied it to the new reserve purely because it is Te Reo. Thereby distancing a part of our community’s Maori history from its true place. Catherine Farmer is not one to talk, therefore, about ‘‘multi-culture’’ and respect for Maori heritage in the Whau.
Leave Dale alone. I think he should stay as long as folks like him.
LISA TRUTTMAN
Avondale
CONTACT US
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