When it’s safe taking it to the limit

It’s a couple of months since the new speed limits were introduced to Whangārei Heads Rd so things have settled into a routine.

Recently I drove from Parua Bay to Onerahi as the last in a line of six cars. I must say all were driving exceptionally safely and the journey was a delight. We completely ignored the speed limits but instead kept our eyes on the road. At times we were 20km/h over the limit when it was safe to do so, at other times 10km/ h below on tricky sections.

Another time I was behind a driver fanatically keeping 5km/h below the limit. When changing from 80 to 60 they suddenly slammed on the brakes as they passed the sign, braking like they did every time they came to the slightest corner. It was a miserable journey and unsafe knowing the driver was spending more time watching their speedometer than the road and oblivious to the long line of frustrated vehicles behind.

It is hard not to see the whole project as a waste of $770,000. But worse than that, nothing has been spent on the two most dangerous situations.

Outside the Parua Bay school and shops drivers still go 50 to 60km/ h despite the new 30km/h sign. Speed bumps would slow drivers to 25km/h like lots of other locations in town. So simple. How important is a child’s life? The other spot is heading to town on the right-hand curve at the Wharf Rd intersection. This has a reverse camber and in wet weather is lethal. The 55km/h advisory sign is far too fast in those conditions. There has been one totally preventable death and dozens of crashes over the years. A simple steel barrier would have saved a life and prevent future ones. As an experienced traffic engineer said, “If speed limits are unrealistic then they will be rightly ignored.”

Now the speed limit review is voluntary let’s scrap them. Incidentally, there were two crashes in the fortnight after they were introduced.

Colin Edwards Parua Bay

Why are we different?

Is our council backward or is there something dark going on? Airport noise management committees in Auckland, Ardmore, Queenstown, Wellington and Nelson all have an independent chairperson, along with community reps representing the community affected by the noise generated from airport operations. Sounds pretty fair to me?

Whangārei had an airport noise management committee for the last 20 years. It consisted of three community reps representing the community affected by airport noise, one councillor, three aviation reps and an independent chairperson. It worked. Then in 2021 the council, working with NEST, appointed Phil Halse as chair and now I see the council is advertising for an impartial community representative. Does that sound ok to you? How can a community rep be impartial if their role is to represent the community that is affected by the noise? The noise management has nothing to do with the wider committee (the noise management committee was set up for the airport uses and the community affected by the noise, to address airport noise issues) the same as every other airport in New Zealand. Why should we be any different?

No wonder many Onerahi residents are not happy.

The council has spent hundreds of thousands of our ratepayers money on lawyers . I have been reading about Jimmy Daisley's case. This seems to me to be a similar situation; Council just do what they want and don't care about wasting our money on lawyers against their own people. WDC it's never too late to do the right thing.

Neil Pemberton Onerahi

Rates rise hardship

I’ve been pondering this imminent rate rise by the WDC and would like a response from Vince Cocurullo. My wife and I are both in our 70s and exist on the NZ super. As we all know, the cost of living has skyrocketed over the last year or so and we’ve been forced to knuckle down progressively to try to make ends meet. Suffice to say that we now need to account for every cent we get.

Our insurance increased 25 per cent, power has increased, the fuel cost is back over $3 a litre, general food is now becoming out of reach, even though we try to grow all our own veggies and salads, thank God we are mortgage free. As there is no public transport where we live we are forced to maintain a motor vehicle to enable us to travel into Whangārei to grocery shop etc. The only expense that may be reduced if we sold up and moved into town would be the reduced fuel costs. Everything else remains the same if not more, so really, there is no advantage to move.

Whenever there is a small increase in the NZ super it seems everybody increases their prices. I had a plumber attend to a leak at our house recently and was charged $851 to replace a faulty mechanism in the toilet cistern. That ate up well over two weeks worth of super.

So, my question is, where do you think this extra 17 per cent rate increase is going to come from Vince? Considering that this increase is to help balance the books after council’s massive waste of ratepayers money like “Noddyland” in the town basin that we all knew wasn’t going to sustain itself. Or the new council building that wasn’t needed seeing as Forum North was quite serviceable. How am I going to be able to find the money to pay this rates increase? It’s time the council looked at their own budgeting skills, or lack there of, and stopped using the ratepayers as a convenient panacea.

P. Davies Hikurangi