STAFF REPORTERS
Noxious weeds have been hit hard in the Bay thanks to a weedbusting programme launched last year.
Environment Bay of Plenty weedbuster co-ordinator Wendy Baker said a series of activities including working bees, weed walks, school visits and teacher training workshops have rooted out plenty of unwanted plants.
"People are always keenly interested in weeds and want to know how to identify, control and dispose of them," she said.
Weedbusters national co-ordinator Amber Bill said the first year of the programme had shown how keen New Zealanders were to protect the environment.
"In our second year we aim to encourage even more New Zealanders to join the groundswell of community support for efforts to control and eradicate weeds," she said.
Chris Carter, Minister for Conservation, launched the weedbusters programme in October last year. The Department of Conservation and regional councils are co-ordinating the project.
Ms Bill said weeds cost the country more than $100 million a year in control and production loss.
"We now have more than 200 plants, originally introduced as ornamental garden species, which have become serious pests in the environment," she said.
"And there are others that have the potential to spread and damage our native environment."
Ms Bill said a weedbusting effort could be as simple as a home gardener having a good awareness about plants in their garden and taking care not to grow invasive weeds.
"Or for the really keen they might want to join or form their own community weedbusters group."
Matthew Torbit
Top recognition
Innovative and collaborative planning processes behind tauranga's $50 million Pyes Pa West Urban Development have won national recognition.
The project, which cleared its final planning hurdle in August, has been awarded the Resource Management Law Association's Documentation Award.
Association spokeswoman Ruth Lees said the award recognised the innovative and collaborative approach taken to planning urban development on 430ha between Pyes Pa Rd and the Kopurererua Stream.
The development will provide housing for up to 8000 people in an environment dedicated to the live/work/play philosophy, she said.
The award went to Grasshopper Farms Ltd and Beca Carter Hollings and Ferner, in association with Environment Bay of Plenty and the Tauranga City and Western Bay councils.
Beca planning consultant Christine Ralph said the project required a unique collaborative approach because the area straddled the boundary of the two councils.
The Western Bay council adopted Tauranga's district plan for the Pyes Pa West area to achieve consistent planning rules.
A memorandum of understanding was signed by the two councils to share water supplies and ensure common engineering standards prevailed.
"The fact that the entire process took only 15 months from inception to hearing was a real testament to all the parties. It really does show the Resource Management Act can work," she said.
John Cousins
Stalemate reached
Former psychiatric patients now living in the Western Bay are "extremely disappointed" that attorney-general Margaret Wilson has refused to meet them to discuss abuse they claim happened at state-run asylums.
Bay of Plenty Consumer Action Coalition spokeswoman Sue Harkin said six local people had joined a national group seeking an apology and recognition of what had happened to them at various mental hospitals in the 1960s and 1970s.
They claim electro-convulsive therapy was used inappropriately and that sexual, physical and emotional abuse occurred.
But Ms Wilson has now sent the national group a letter saying they must resolve any outstanding court cases relating to the abuse before she would sit down and discuss the matter with them.
Ms Harkin said the Minister's response was insensitive as many of those involved merely wanted an apology rather than financial compensation.
"A lot of these people are on low incomes and have no idea about the process of contacting lawyers and going to court," she said.
The local people involved would "keep boxing on" and Ms Harkin said she would continue to offer each of them her personal support.
Jo-Marie Brown
Home comforts
Eight-year-old Tauranga youngster Caitlin Brown is enjoying the comforts of home having after a rare operation on her hip.
The bubbly Bethlehem Primary student has battled with Perthes disease for the past three years and has endured three operations since her diagnosis.
Perthes is a painful hip condition in which blood circulation to the bone is lost, causing the bone to die and become deformed.
Ten days ago she had a "distraction" operation to relieve the pressure on her hip and give her the opportunity to recover from the disease.
The operation means Caitlin will wear an external frame on her upper thigh for the next four months to help her bone cartilage reform.
She has named the metal frame Rasni - after her favourite horse.
Her mother, Donna Brown, spent each day with Caitlin at Tauranga Hospital.
When the Bay of Plenty Times caught up with Caitlin on Thursday, she was enjoying her first morning back at home and had had a visit from her teacher and friends from school.
Caitlin will have about two weeks off school before returning to her normal school routine.
After 12 months, Caitlin and her family will know if the operation has been successful.
Anna Bowden
Golf go-ahead
Developer Rocky Cribb can forge ahead with his plans for a world-class $100 million golf and residential resort at Katikati after he reached agreement with Western Bay of Plenty District Council over section titles and services.
Mr Cribb had been negotiating with the council for five months to change the original resource consent conditions for Resort Pacifica, which already provides an 18-hole championship golf course and a clubhouse in Sharp Rd.
The negotiations included freeholding 150 sections which were under a body corporate unit title structure and developing a suitable wastewater disposal package for the development. Resort Pacifica will be paying a significant amount towards a new sewage pipeline to the council's Katikati wastewater treatment and disposal plant.
The pipeline, which also connects with the Marshall Rd industrial land, will meet future growth requirements in the area and will be in place by the end of January.
Seventy of the sections have already been sold and another 30, ranging in size from 440 sq m to 880sq m, will be made available at a ``silent auction'' on November 27. Prospective buyers submit bids on the day and the highest offer is accepted.
Mr Cribb will be landbanking the other 50 sections, but all the new terracotta-roofed houses will be built under a Pacifica theme with owners having the choice of several designs.
He also has plans to build a five-star hotel with conference facilities, extend the golf facilities, and create an atrium involving a swimming pool, caf? and gymnasium.
Graham Skellern
Hit squad roots out unwanted weeds
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