Slip repairs
It is good news to hear that repair work on the slip beside the City Bridge is finally under way after repeated efforts by the Whanganui District Council to get the NZTA to take action.
It seems that what our mayor Hamish McDouall described as "our media tub-thumping" (Wanganui Chronicle, September 15) has been successful.
Regrettably, the WDC has been less proactive when it comes to fixing up its own slip sites. A notable example of this is the large slip scarp on the WDC's road reserve opposite 49 Ikitara Rd, which has slipped repeatedly since August 2010, including a major landslide obstructing Ikitara Rd in June 2015 that remained uncleared for several days.
Our mayor offered no response to my two letters to the Wanganui Chronicle in May and August concerning setting a timeframe for resolving this threat to public safety.
As I noted earlier, his circumspect silence in this case whilst tub-thumping over the slip beside the City Bridge has created a credibility gap that has not gone unnoticed among those of us still living in his old neighbourhood of Whanganui East.
Due to the ongoing threat this unstable slip scarp on WDC land poses to passers-by, it too needs to be remediated and stabilised.
W MCCALLUM
Whanganui East
Art in hospitals
Re. the fundraising event for Art in Hospitals, I wish them well.
For the past few years, my husband and I have been in the habit of donating one of his paintings to any hospital either of us has been a patient in, both here and in several other cities.
These have always been gratefully acknowledged by other district health boards.
With our hospital, things have not turned out as well as they might.
The whole idea of our donations was to hang the paintings where the patients could enjoy something other than a blank wall!
The ATR ward here did exactly as I had asked, hanging the painting in a specific room (with no view). I have received many positive comments about that one.
The surgical ward hung theirs in a visitors' waiting room! Not even in the family room where patients could see it.
The emergency department head of department chose theirs. He decided where it was to be hung (on a wall opposite the patients' cubicles).
One year later it was still languishing in a doctor's office under a desk, apparently waiting for a maintenance person to put a hook in the wall! Eventually it was hung on the wrong colour wall, in a corridor nowhere near the patients, thus defeating the whole purpose of it being there, so I asked for it to be returned to me.
Hopefully this DHB may be more appreciative and have more respect for the art if it is bought rather than donated!
FIONA M DONNE
Aramoho
Ask Aunt Steve
Steve Baron, council aspirant, seems keen to spend our money.
His opinion piece (Chronicle, November 13) suggests a rates holiday ("a few years") for new arrivals here
As we have the lowest house prices in the country, I imagine many new residents are better off than our long-suffering ratepayers.
He suggests a new position be established to lobby government on our behalf. I thought we had a mayor perfectly able and capable for that role.
Now I see Steve dispensing quotes for a nicer world (Chronicle, November 14). What's next, an agony aunt column?
Dear Steve, I live in a nice little town with excessive rates. Please help. Yours, Desperate.
Trouble is, I don't think he can help; the opposite, in fact.
PETER RUSSELL
Whanganui
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