Letters Friday 14 May 2010
Pohara cliffs and Tarakohe quarry
Three points Ms Butts made in her letter (GBW 7/5) deserve further comment.
1: I agree that the Pohara/Tarakohe cliffs’ landscape has changed over time; however the changes that make it a unique and beautiful place have happened over millions of years without human intervention.
2: That an activity, in this case quarrying, has been carried out for 100 years does not necessarily make it right. The almost universal shift in attitude in regard to commercial whaling is a case in point.
3: Most of the subdivision, building and landscaping done in the Bay over the past 20-odd years has been to accommodate people who have moved here or visit because of our unique landscape, amongst other things, so that blasting the Pohara/Tarakohe cliff tops off to facilitate further growth is akin to shooting one’s self between the eyes in an attempt to cure a headache.
Alan Blackie
This quarry has been active on and off for the past 100 years and was closed in 1988 by the Golden Bay Cement Company. By comparison, the present owners over the last nine years have taken very little from the quarry. They have made vast improvements beyond their requirements by creating wildlife and wetland areas, spread topsoil, planted grass, and trees etc.
I suggest to the Tauranga visitor (GBW Letters 7/5) to look in his own backyard before telling others what to do.
The company does care about the environment and must adhere to local council requirements for any work they carry out. Their generosity both in the private and commercial sectors is to be commended. One wants to remember that this quarry and other local land could have ended up in overseas ownership. Then what would we have had?
Kerry Campbell
Budget camping
I am sick of hearing locals and the media badmouthing freedom campers and labelling them a “problem”. As a business person I see an opportunity for council to niche market “budget camping” by providing the service that our valued guests desire. The increasing cost of staying at commercial campgrounds and backpackers has created a gap at the bottom of the market. We have ample empty space in New Zealand and the Bay, which only requires the provision of public toilets and rubbish bins - which some of our uncrowded beaches already have.
Charging a minimal fee of say $5 per car would cover the cost of rubbish removal, toilet cleaning and an enforcement officer, who could then enforce a zero tolerance policy for “free camping”. Any profit would help keep our rates down and our happy guests will spend their remaining budget keeping us employed at cafés, galleries and activities. Everyone wins.
Chris Shaw
Integrated health centre
The proposed GB Community Health Centre (GBCHC) will co-locate the medical centre and rest home at the Central Takaka hospital. Locating all health services at one site is projected to cost over $10,000,000 (including $7,600,000 debt). Government debt for TDC is $115,000,000, for NZ $24,000,000,000.
Fact: The present medical centre is GB-owned without debt and a substantial savings account. Imagine: Student Ace catches swine. Ace, along with a quarter of GB residents, lives in Takaka township. Unexpectedly Ace falls ill at school with high fever and uncontrollable coughing. No longer can students walk to the medical centre. Fortunately Ace is transported the four kilometres from school to the GBCHC. Ace stumbles into the hospital coughing constantly then wanders through the rest home before collapsing into a posh leather-upholstered chair at the medical centre. Sweating buckets, Ace waits in the air-conditioned room for a GP. Ace is diagnosed and prescribed Tami-flu and home quarantine.
Please IMG, answer: Has the IMG business plan been prepared from a health needs assessment? Will the IMG’s one-stop GBCHC treat patients with contagious diseases and accommodate pandemics and natural disasters in one building? Does the GBCHC have improved access for frail, infirm and mobility-scooter patients?
Ro Piekarski for GB MORE,
Money to Revitalise the Economy
Response from Peter Burton, general manager primary and community health NMDHB, on behalf of the integrated management group: The Interim Management Group is unclear how Mr Piekarski has arrived at his figures. The mortgage will be $4.2 million, or less if we can raise more equity through fund-raising or receive proceeds from either the medical centre trust or Joan Whiting, and is affordable based on the income received from the government. It is forecast to be paid off in 15 years, with any surpluses going back into Golden Bay health needs.
The medical centre is in need of enlargement and replacement and the plan for integration is the most cost-effective way of doing that in tandem with preserving and enhancing health services for the people of Golden Bay - see the three-page insert appearing in this week’s paper for more information.
All of Golden Bay’s health facilities currently have plans in place for pandemics. A pandemic plan will be developed for the new facility. An integrated health service operating from one facility in the Bay will make a co-ordinated response to a pandemic considerably easier”
