Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including student quarter, a pioneering Kiwi and the state of Lake Monowai.
The changing face of the student quarter
Liam White’s comments on the student area (ODT 6.5.25) are the typical comments I have become used to as a student landlord for approaching 50 years from that minority of students who are beer-swilling immature adolescents. They complain about the state of things just after they’ve wrecked them.
Those modern units he longs for are everywhere now. They have huge choice.
They are what has wrecked the charm of streets like, in particular, Grange St, which (from my memory of 40-plus years) used to be a delightful mix of Victorian cottages and ’20s and ’30s character homes .
Now largely gone, it has a salad selection of modern boxes at the lower end and identical plastic storey-and-a-halfs at the other.
As for warrants of fitness, they already have them with an endless stream of new regulations in recent years.
With extortionate rates, insurance, mortgages and maintenance costs they are the reasons many landlords have got out of rental properties in recent years.
There are better investments, like diversified share and bond portfolios, which have higher returns and vastly less hassle.
George Livingstone
Roslyn
Bike boom
I write in support of Cr Steve Walker (ODT 7.5.25) for challenging Cr Vandervis’ incorrect claim cycleway use has not increased in the past four years.
My daily cycle commute observations over the past four years on the Vauxhall Yacht Club to City and Portobello Rd to Andersons Bay Rd parts of the cycleway network have increased steadily year on year particularly during weekday commuting hours 7.30-8.30am and 4.30-5.30pm.
I have seen at the very least a fourfold increase. There is now regularly ‘‘cycle jam’’ congestion at the tight crossing points at the Portobello Rd end of Portsmouth Dr when road traffic is dense in both directions.
Ian Henderson
Waverley
Actions appal
I am appalled at the behaviour of the three councillors walking out on the Strath Taieri submission for the nine-year plan due to the fact of what happened two years ago. This means by their ignorance we in the Strath Taieri do not get a fair hearing.
Jock Frew
Middlemarch
[Jock Frew is a member of the Strath Taieri Community Board. Editor.]
No to Pope Donald
I thought I had seen the very worst of Trump but the latest image of him as the Pope using AI really does take the biscuit. How sick can he get?
Arthur Bryan
Wanaka
The photograph of Donald Trump as Pope, which has been uploaded to the internet, is very sick, even by Trump’s standards.
Incredibly, there are still large number of people in New Zealand who support him and his ideas. What is the world coming to?
John Batt
Wakari
Never heard of him
Two things are clear to me in today’s world.
First, if you want to drive people away, say you’re a Trump supporter. Second, if you want to lose an election in a landslide, be a Trump supporter.
I predict that next year Christopher Luxon will be saying ‘‘Donald Trump? Never met the man. Don’t know him’’.
Ewan McDougall
Broad Bay
Pioneering space-faring Kiwi remembered
Recently an article appeared in the ODT mentioning how New Zealand was in the top group of space activity in the world. While not belittling today’s operations, no mention was made of Sir William Hayward Pickering who pioneered America’s space programme along with Werner von Braun and James van Allan.
Sir William’s mother originally lived with the family at the signal station at the Pounawea bar on the Catlins Heads, Otago.
Sir William had dual citizenship America/New Zealand.
On a visit to our family and on one of his talks at the Otago Museum, he showed his absolute humility in spite of his fame in America. He attended the Havelock School 10 years after Lord Rutherford and both had the same teacher. There is a dual monument to them in Havelock main street.
A biography of Sir William is available at various NZ libraries including Dunedin, written by Douglas J. Mudgway.
Maurice Hayward
Opoho
[Mr Hayward is Sir William’s second cousin. Editor.]
Lake nothing like pristine
On reading Darryl Sycamore's reply (5.5.25) to Assoc Prof Earl Bardsley's letter (1.5.25) regarding the hydroelectric scheme on Lake Monowai, I nearly choked on my morning cuppa.
It is outrageous to suggest that Lake Monowai has anywhere near recovered to its former pristine state after the lake level was raised by over 2m, 100 years ago. Can we not learn from the mistakes of the past?
For the chairman (Mr Sycamore) of the Guardians of Lakes Manapouri, Monowai and Te Anau to suggest that the ‘‘plant communities along the shoreline gradient are now beginning to reflect what would have existed along the former shoreline prior to the scheme's introduction’’ is just wrong.
Mr Sycamore, the current shores of Lake Monowai are littered with drowned, dead trees. Any beaches or lakeshore turfs which were present 100 years ago have been destroyed. The current lake level, 2m higher than its natural level, in no way mimics the natural variation in the lake level.
I am very worried about any possible changes to the lake levels of our beautiful lakes Manapouri and Te Anau. Mr Sycamore's attitude implies that it is acceptable to do irreparable damage because 100 years later everything will be ‘‘alright’’.
If Mr Sycamore and his fellow Guardians of the Lakes are the only people standing between similar destruction of lakes Manapouri and Te Anau, then I am very concerned.
Lynley King
Te Anau
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
