Keep it clean
Walkway signs
Well I have to write seeing so many I meet say why have I not.
I told you so. Because the stupid NPDC cannot see the sense in repeated signs indicating keep left, another accident has happened.
The same day I read an email from Liza at the council that they were putting signs on all the entry access places of the walkway (as meeting with her and another after I crashed with a right hand rider and still suffer from it), I read of the unfortunate accident.
No one else is to blame but the NPDC. Blaming speed is childishness, common sense is beyond them in their method of bureaucratic allocation of things for something for staff to do, making excuses like cyclists might ride faster - would you believe that.
A simple forward facing arrow with a left hand part arrow in its centre facing left in the direction one is moving every 50 metres would always remind the person it’s safer to move left. Kevin Harvey New Plymouth
Time for change
The oil companies have been ripping us off at the pump for years. Petrol is much cheaper in Whanganui or Te Kuiti than it is in New Plymouth.
The latest news is that decommissioning of the offshore oil platforms is expected to cost the NZ taxpayer more than $800 million during the next 25 years. Another rip off it seems.
No doubt it is all perfectly legal, but that doesn’t make it morally right. The same oil companies which profit hugely at our cost are no doubt avoiding paying taxes in NZ by international transfer pricing and other accounting practice.
Perhaps it is time for a change of government in September. Colin Bell New Plymouth I took a visitor from Cambridge to Centre City. The interior of the mall was immaculate. The stairways and pathways outside were a different matter.
Green scum, filthy stairs and ancient cigarette stubs seem to be evidence of incredibly low standards - possibly the result of severe cuts in the cleaning budget. The internal pathway from The Warehouse to Devon Street also looks grubby and totally unloved.
Is any council planning undertaken with regard to regular deep cleansing of paths, concrete, tiles etc in pedestrian areas, also the public toilets? How has the CBD been allowed to become such a disgrace?
I hope someone can set up a public FB page similar to ‘Bad Parking’. Residents can take photos of any dirty unkempt areas and upload them easily. It might show city councillors and the manager responsible that we really do care.
It is no use spending money to attract visitors to our beautiful coastline, parks, beaches and other natural features if they arrive here to find dirty streets, public toilets needing a good clean and a fresh coat of paint, faded bus timetables no one can read and street maps that cause visitors to scratch their heads.
We can do much, much better than this... surely. Suzanne Pierce New Plymouth
Spending priorities
Urenui Domain consists of a mixture of sand thrown up by the sea and silt washed down from the hill country when the river floods. It is quite possible that the Urenui river once flowed out to the Tasman below Maruehi Pa.
That the users and bach owners had to fight for over 25 years to get this soft, erosion prone area protected by a rock wall is a disgrace to this NPDC.
I’m not anti-art, in fact, my family trust is a ‘Friend’ of the Len Lye centre, but when millions of dollars annually can be found to prop up this attraction[?] at the expense of more important priorities, I find the reasoning hard to follow.
When the NPDC gathers, in rates and leases, close to $1 million annually from this Domain, I find it difficult to establish a reason why they were so reluctant to protect it, even if it doesn’t belong to them.
Past, present and future generations will thank the hard work and generosity of those who persisted to get this job completed.
It’s not to say, if the soothsayers are correct, that in the future this rock wall may need to be raised, to combat a rising sea. John Hill Urenui