
Gallery visits lessened by lack of a new cafe
Would the Dunedin City Council inform us what progress has been made in finding a lessee for the Nova Cafe site?
Going to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery is great, but the experience is let down by the lack of a cafe/restaurant to go to after or before visiting the gallery, having a place to meet friends, etc.
Nova Cafe had an international reputation — it was well known to tourists as well as locals. I cannot understand why the council isn’t doing more as part of promoting the city and making it an enjoyable place to be, especially the Octagon area.
Besides where would I go on a cold day? Inside to a nearby cafe that has great food, service and atmosphere rather than sit outside amongst the cars, plants, skateboarders, and now dogs?
Generally, the council needs to focus business development — listening to businesses and their needs rather than than the demands of those who advocate and support pedestrianisation.
[Anna Nilsen, Dunedin City Council property services group manager, responds: Work to find a suitable tenant for the space next to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery is ongoing, and the DCC has been engaging with a number of potential vendors. The space is well advertised by real estate agents throughout the region and we hope to fill it soon. There are a number of cafes and restaurants in the Octagon, Stuart St and surrounding streets, and we encourage residents and visitors alike to support the many local businesses available to choose from.]
Safety lauded
It is great to read about the commitment by the crew at the Dunedin Railways regarding safety for the isolated train journeys in our area. With this commitment does this mean that the trips from Dunedin to Middlemarch will be under way again soon?
It is such a wonderful asset for the city, for so many tourists and for local people too. It would be a great pity if it just gets put in the too hard basket.
Put them on the tools
What in the world was the terminally ill woman in Alexandra thinking when she expected ACC to front up for her wet-floor shower? (ODT 12.6.24).
Did she not realise their contractors were so busy building a new office block in Dunedin that they had no time for her?
Isn’t it pathetically amusing we hear of no cost overruns, battles over what will, or won’t, be left out because of cost, contractors being pulled out, or general public incredulity at the toing and froing (are they words?) which leads to enormous waste of time and money.
Maybe we should get ACC to build the new hospital?
Not needed
Re Jim McCormick’s letter of 12.6.24, I concur with his sentiments. A nuclear power plant in this country would be a disaster waiting to happen.
We are not known as the shaky isles for nothing. One has only to look not so many years back, to the disastrous tsunami in Japan and the continuing fallout from that time.
Also, consider the Dounreay nuclear power plant near the top of Scotland. Built in the 1950s and now being decommissioned since the 1970s.
It is going to take until the 2070s before it is fully decommissioned and will not become a brownfield site until 2336.
We definitely do not need any nuclear power plant in New Zealand.
A necessary sacrifice? How is that working out?
When it comes to defending sovereign territory against the forces of evil and hate, is it only wrong when Israel does it? Apparently so.
There is very little by way of demands, from the UN downwards, for the immediate release of the remaining captives being held by Hamas. Israelis celebrate life. Hamas celebrates death, even of its own.
Hamas Chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, after three of his sons were killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike, wrote that their deaths, and those of other Palestinians "will inject life into the veins of this nation, and bring it to its glory and honour". Sinwar has also opined that civilian losses "were a necessary sacrifice" for the Palestinian cause.
How’s that working out? Not so well for most.
Martin Luther King jun said: "Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness."
This is now being played out in a war that did not have to happen.
Has had enough
Dave Tackney’s letter (13.6.24) is right on the mark. After eight months of a relentless barrage of anti-Israel vitriol from the "hurrah for Hamas" brigade, I have had enough .
Hamas is an internationally proscribed terrorist organisation, funded, supported and encouraged, by the Islamic theocracy currently running Iran. Both Iran and Hamas call for the extermination of all Jews and the annihilation of the State of Israel. Hamas is happy to use Gazans as human shields and cannon fodder, in their war with Israel, as a means to their end game, outlined above. Hamas has enough underground shelter to protect all of Gaza’s population.
Ironically the Hamas leadership is safely ensconced in Qatar.
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