Letters to the editor: Is Labour neglecting SH2 for political reasons?

State Highway 2 despair

One has to read the letters about State Highway 2 to feel the utter despair in their tone.
How a project like the Northern Link was stopped by this Government is beyond belief when the funding and detail was there for it to begin this year.

Where has this money gone? Free tertiary education, trams or Winnie's all-weather horse racing tracks?

Do they mean more to this government than people's lives?

I personally think that this standoff has become political as Bay of Plenty is a National area.

The local Labour MPs should be putting pressure on the government.

The Katikati bypass is another ongoing issue. On November 20, 2016, Winston Peters pledged to build a bypass around Katikati if NZ First was elected to government.

Is this a lie, Mr Peters, or do you think all-weather race tracks are a better spend of taxpayers' money?

Perhaps you could ask Mr Jones to dip into his regional fund to build it?

To those in Katikati who voted NZ First, please ask them about this pledge.

We need improved transport infrastructure urgently but are receiving a minimal percentage out of the transport pot to sort it.

Forget the politics and get our bloody road sorted.

I am typing this and waiting for the next siren at Ōmokoroa to go off. We all know what that means.

Denis Meredith
Omokoroa

Growth? More like spin

This growth is Tauranga City Council spin.

Basically, all the work mentioned in the article (Inside Story, July 7) apart from the university is either replacing or refurbishing existing buildings.

In my opinion, this work will only bring back the people that the CBD had already lost because of poor planning by council staff, so there really is very little growth within the CBD.

The university will bring in maybe 1500 more students and staff but in reality, they are normally very small spenders and it's interesting to note most universities throughout the country are reducing staffing numbers because of a reduction of student numbers so it may never reach its full potential.

Any construction work that we see presently in the CBD is all necessary work and not the growth that the council insists we believe.

In my view, they know they are being untruthful because they are only building one new car parking building, which is still not big in capacity, to replace the number of car parks already removed from the CBD by the council, let alone allowing for this so-called growth they keep talking about, and that is the one thing that will continue to hold the CBD back.

Devon Campbell
Papamoa