Letters: Shame on those who let Lakehouse be demolished

Rotorua's Lakehouse Hotel in March, just before the demolition work began. Photo/file

On a visit to Rotorua this week, I was struck by how little built heritage is left in this city.

Then I was stunned to see another landmark, the 1872 Lakehouse Hotel, Rotorua's oldest building, disappearing forever.

Built before the town came into existence, this proud old girl has stood sentinel above Ohinemutu for all of 146 years and is historic by any New Zealand standards.

It is astonishing that the Historic Places Trust did not list the building.

The reasons given for its loss - concerns about safety - are belied by the flourishing Prince's Gate Hotel, somewhat younger but nevertheless from the same era.

It is hard to believe that a building with heart rimu framing can be structurally unsound and unable to be maintained.

Shame on all concerned.

MARK SMALE
Te Awamutu

Coverage appreciated

The Rotorua Multicultural Council is very grateful for the wonderful coverage which the Weekender and the Rotorua Daily Post provided for the African Day Celebration.

Stephen Parker's Lakefront photo of the organisers of the event with Shauni James's article attracted 80 people to this celebration of African food, art, music and dancing at the Linton Park Community Centre on Saturday.

It was so pleasing to see migrants from Scotland, Japan, England, the Philippines, Croatia, India, Saudi Arabia, Fiji and Germany enjoying the food and fashion parade with the migrants from Africa.

The photos and video by Ben Fraser and the article by Alice Guy in your Monday paper will help to ensure the success of future multicultural celebrations.

On behalf of the 12,000 Rotorua residents who were not born in New Zealand - thank you very much for your support.

Dr Margriet Theron
President, Rotorua Multicultural Council

Stark reminder

The Hikoi for the homeless which travelled to one of our three MPs' offices and on to Rotorua Lakes Council on Monday was a stark reminder of how many people in our community are without stable housing.

Nobody wants anyone to be homeless, solutions have been a long time coming, and thankfully they have arrived, which is a contrast to the previous National-United Future-ACT-Māori Party government who refused to even acknowledge there was a housing crisis.

In 2016 ex-Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett said she was commited to helping Rotorua's most vulnerable, yet in the very same year National passed a bill, with support from the Māori Party, which saw mass state home sell-offs across New Zealand.

Even here in Rotorua, under MPs Todd McClay and Te Ururoa Flavell, state homes were sold off, adding vulnerable people to the state housing waiting list which has steadily increased over the past nine years.

Thankfully, in the short six months that the Labour-NZ First-Green Party Government have been in power we have seen an acknowledgement of the housing crisis, we've also seen more than $3 billion committed via the Budget to the building of 6400 new social homes and 2155 new emergency housing places across NZ.

Best of all, Rotorua will see the Housing First scheme rolled out later this year, this scheme aims to end homelessness for people, not just manage it.

Ending homelessness at long last, sounds good to me.
(Abridged)

Ryan Gray
Rotorua