Letters: Cyclist concerned about crossing after crash

That contractors struggled in horrendous weather conditions through the depths of last winter and were able to produce such amazingly tidy professional work for the new footpaths, crossing, kerbs, gutters etc in Ranolf St, Springfield Rd and elsewhere defies belief. The standard of work is absolutely first class.

As a regular amateur road cyclist for the last 20 years, I am aware that it behoves our fraternity to take extreme care and be ever mindful of the hazards in every shape and form out there.

That I should come to grief recently when manoeuvring from the roadway to the cycleway at the last residential crossing before the Utuhina Stream bridge at the bottom of Springfield Road fair annoyed me. I shouldn't have crashed off and, as a consequence, cracked my ribs and gashed my reconstructed knee, but I did.

A jogger across the street came rushing across and helped me off the concrete. The next day I went back to survey the crossing and found to my amazement that in all the new work over hundreds of metres it appeared that particular 4 metre-wide crossing is the only one where the original gutter has not been replaced.

It would be a good 5 centimetres lower that all other work.

Graeme Smith
Springfield

Playground not child's play

I read the article in the Daily Post on January 12, 2019, with apprehension: "Designers ask children for ideas on play area".

As part of the lakefront development, a new play space will replace the existing volcanic playground and the council is holding a series of workshops to involve children in the design.

Is designing a children's playground "child's play?" An extremely simple task or act?

What life lessons will children be taught throughout the consultation process with a luxury budget of $1 million? Money grows on trees? It's okay to spend other people's money instead of learning how to make do and recycle assets?

Is the consultation statement attempting to give legitimacy to the wider lakefront project, co-planned with Pukeroa Lakefront Holdings and rubber-stamped by the council?

Will the council's haste make waste? A hasty and ill-thought out plan causing more costly mistakes and budget overruns?

Is it "fair play" for the next generation of children to be forced down the slippery slide of the ever-growing mountain of unsustainable inter-generational debt and interest costs facing current and future ratepayers?

(Abridged)

Tracey McLeod
Lake Tarawera