Letters to the editor: Growth doesn't pay for growth, ratepayers do

No wonder emissions are rising with the Bay's congested roads. Photo / George Novak

Regarding the article on emissions in the Bay of Plenty (News, October 11).

Of course the Bay of Plenty's emissions are rising twice as fast as nationally - we're still dragging in new residents and businesses as fast as we can.

For what reason, when our roads are overwhelmed and our homeless have filled every available motel and are camping in parks and reserves?

We may as well park our 166 empty buses around town and let the homeless sleep in them.

Please don't tell us that it improves the BOP economy, that it makes Tauranga more vibrant or a better place to live. Nobody believes that anymore.

Growth doesn't pay for growth, ratepayers do - and it goes on and on.

Spare us the "Three Waters" bull, the unending road reconstructions designed for everything except cars, and the sports fields now destined to be low-cost housing (yeah, right) and send them somewhere else.

Dan Russell
Tauranga

Three Waters deal 'lousy'

The Three Waters Reform is a lousy deal for ratepayers, in my view.

The Government proposes that all the infrastructure assets which now provide our drinking water, and dispose of wastewater and stormwater, be taken from the ratepayers who have paid for it over the generations.

The law requires councils to consult with their ratepayers before any major assets are sold or disposed of, but how will that consultation help when the basic proposal is, in my opinion, flawed at its core?

If Government gets its way, almost a third of the assets owned by council ratepayers will be confiscated and handed to huge regional bureaucracies.

Somebody forgot to tell the Government that "local" means making decisions at the local level.

Ratepayers are waking up: at the last count, more than 500 have written to our council, opposing this proposal. People are worried, and rightly so.

The whole proposal is fundamentally flawed and should be scrapped.

Margaret Murray-Benge
Western Bay of Plenty District councillor
Bethlehem

Too much junk

It is a crying shame that we have to buy junk that only lasts a few months and then cannot be repaired and gets thrown out.

It is definitely better to buy more expensive items that will, hopefully, last.

The problem is better quality is hard to find.

It must surely be within the compass of Kiwi ingenuity to be able to manufacture electronic items, toasters, heaters, irons, etc - surely it would be something worth looking into.

I hate having to throw away electrical goods that have not lasted a year.

Jim Adams
Rotorua

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