Cycleway project demise win for Albany St traders
Albany St saved. Cycleway project ditched. Car parks remain and many wise people have been listened to and opinions valued.
Thank you to Mayor Radich and councillors who understand the importance and value of listening to the majority of people before making decisions. (ODT 27.8.25).
These councillors understand the importance of supporting and valuing the work of our hard-working local business people and ratepayers.
They understand that money, which comes from ratepayers, can only be used once and must be used wisely.
Too often, in the past, expensive, unwise and unnecessary projects have been forced on to the residents by temporary planners and leaders.
Unfortunately many permanent structures and unsuccessful projects can not be reversed and we have to live with them.
Before anyone puts his/her name forward to stand, for a council leadership role, each should think carefully and ask themselves ‘‘Do I have what this city needs? Am I the best person for this important job of leading our city?’’
Every city needs leaders with the experience, skills, knowledge and the personality to be part of a leading team.
We all must vote with knowledge and care.
Bernice Armstrong
North East Valley
I am relieved that Mayor Radich and six other members of the Dunedin City Council made the wise decision to cancel the contentious Albany St cycleway.
While we should encourage cycling and walking, scrapping 48 carparks would have hurt local businesses and student residents. People not having parking near their homes or workplaces would make it harder to carry groceries, furniture and other things.
Cr Jim O'Malley seems to have a phobia about businesses and cars. His attitude is helping to drive businesses from the Dunedin CBD. How councillors voted on the Albany St connection and parking should give us an idea of who to vote for in the upcoming city council election. The DCC needs to serve all ratepayers, whether cyclists, motorists, bus passengers or walkers.
Andrew Lim
Shiel Hill
The University of Otago pays no rates, but expects Dunedin ratepayers to fund, through council’s millions of dollars, to help a group of students cross a road.
I am pretty sure they have enough experience crossing roads since primary school. If a small number of Spokes members are having difficulty riding their bikes in traffic maybe riding in a bus would suit them better?
Mary Robertson
Dunedin
The chilling effect of the harbour foreshore
For almost seven years in the 1960s I worked in premises on the Otago Harbour foreshore, and believe me, I see little point in connecting the area by cycleway with the central city, when on many days even in summer, the area had almost as little appeal as the south Col of Everest due to persistent, (almost daily after 10am), nor-easterly winds which chilled to the bone.
Any notion of the area becoming the ‘‘Portofino of the South’', as had been promoted some years ago, with visions of mass outdoor latte-sipping under candy-striped awnings, seems, mercifully, to have died a natural death.
Now, to top it all, elements in university circles give the impression that abandonment of this ill-advised scheme will inconvenience students in some way.
Tough. Maybe their arguments might have more credibility if they contributed more to the costs of having their establishment in the city, and if they and government agencies coughed up part or all of the costs of using city services instead of leaving the burden of the costs of the many advantages they soak up like damp blotting-paper, to be carried by the city's ratepayers.
Ian Smith
Waverley
Unwise booze move
How stupid it is to make it easier for the alcohol industry when one looks at the harm it causes? It is certainly not the local communities who are benefiting. Look at the work that has to be done to deal with the impact on families who have to struggle to cope, the car accidents and more importantly the effect on our children.
J. Park
Wakari
LWDW smiles are not going to last very long
It is really quite infuriating to witness the pathetic group-think of Wellington consultants, politicians and media like the ODT on the subject of ‘‘Local Water Done Well.’’
In the absence of any actual experience, you all have jumped to the conclusion that giving water and wastewater in rural South Island to new regional companies will somehow reduce the water charges to customers.
Your only evidence is the speculative modelling by consultants who specialise in telling their customers what they want to hear.
Contractors are supposed to be so impressed by a slightly larger regional company that they offer lower bids than to individual districts. Fat chance.
The remote new company’s bureaucracy, freed of oversight by a district’s voters, are alleged to be much more cost-effective.
This is counter-intuitive, as shown by the fiasco of Wellington Water where the contractors captured the company and whose chairman confessed after many scandals that ‘‘we have not been delivering value for money.’’
The smiles on the faces of the ‘‘Southern Water Done Well’’ mayors aren’t going to last past the first new water bills.
They have sold out their constituents just because they wanted to dump the challenge of water on somebody else.
Mike Sweeney
Oamaru
Ain’t no stopping us now
I am amused that Dave Tackney (Letters 27.8.25) considers himself in the majority when he expresses aversion to general use of te reo in Aotearoa.
Maori is an official language. It existed long before Europeans arrived here.
Get over it Dave. Use of te reo is here to stay, and it adds immeasurably to our culture.
I believe Maori and Pakeha can only benefit from increasing use of te reo and, happily, there is no stopping it now.
Orma Bradfield
Broad Bay
