Letters to the Editor

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Speeding Priorities
Before Molesworth Drive was formed, Lower Tara Rd was the only access between the Mangawhai Tavern, the outlying farming community and the Heads beach. As such the road was, and still is, a rural road. In latter years developers carved up the then productive land into non-productive lifestyle blocks (one incentive being the Mangawhai Golf Course) with no consideration as to the impact the increased vehicle traffic, including Heather Levack’s, would have on animal and pedestrian safety in the shape of sealed footpaths or road widening.

Today’s lifestyle block owners enjoy all the benefits of two shopping centres, two petrol stations, three garages and Post boxes, three community halls, library, Domain sports fields, tennis courts, bowling greens and 18 hole golf course, primary school, St John Ambulance station, fire brigade and access to the Heads beach via Molesworth Drive or Cove Rd.

Heather Levack should have considered her cats and pedestrian safety before she chose to live on a 100 kmh rural road. Her selective lifestyle along with numerous others are unfairly applying subtle pressure on Council and existing inner residential-zoned ratepayers to pay for upgrading rural roads to streets without paying for basic infrastructure improvements first as I did back in the 1970s, ie kerb and channelling, sealed footpath, stormwater drainage, since which time hundreds of boaties, cars, trucks and pedestrians use annually.

Here’s the bottom line Heather: Speed reductions are not the answer, nor is your getting a speeding ticket. You can’t legislate to protect idiot drivers from themselves, like the two idiots exiting Tara Rd without looking, one I swerved to miss and the other which caused me to jump on my brakes to avoid hitting, or cats, dogs, cows or children who might be endangered or cause danger themselves. It is the owners or parents responsibility to safeguard their animals and children.

Heather, you and others need to put your hand in your pocket and pay for aforementioned footpaths or accept a Council-imposed ‘targeted rate’ including administration and interest costs on borrowed funding and while you’re at it, go the extra mile and add a cycle lane so that children can ride their bikes to school in safety.

Stage one, lay a footpath and cycle land starting at Darmah Lane to new pedestrian bridge on the Kaiwaka/Mangawhai road, any future extensions to be paid for or contributed by new developers. It’s time you paid your way.

Noel Paget
Mangawhai


No to Paleo
Rather than revisiting the controversy over the liver and bone broth baby formula that "Paleo" Pete Evans was advocating in Auckland and Wellington a few weeks ago, let’s focus on the future and how we should all evolve and eat healthy vegan foods.

Although the Paleo Diet has some sensible components—it calls for lots of vegetables, forbids dairy products, and limits sugar and processed foods—it also includes a lot of cholesterol-laden meat, fish, and eggs. It’s not a healthy choice for people who want sexy abs and strong hearts. In fact, if you eat too many animal-based foods, you’re bound to wind up with a body like Fred Flintstone.

Of course, you likely wouldn’t find a bowl of beef stew in Palaeolithic times. People who lived during the Palaeolithic Era probably ate rodents and wild animals, not cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals who were raised in factory farms and killed in slaughterhouses. Even the crops that were available during the Stone Age were a lot different from the crops that are available today.

Our current meat production practices are hurting animals, the environment, and our health. Studies show that meat-eaters are prone to be obese and suffer from heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Vegan meals, on the other hand, are loaded with heart-healthy fibre and contain no artery-clogging animal fat and cholesterol, so they’re a great choice for anyone looking to slim down. And it’s much easier and more beneficial to go vegan than to follow a prehistoric diet plan. Go to PETA.org.au for more information and to order your free vegan starter kit.

Des Bellamy
Special Projects Coordinator
PETA Australia


Appeals ignored
The state of this road is a joke. Now the first half of Gibbons Rd has had "Slow down, dust nuisance" signs erected, but not the stretch between the quarry and Baldrock Rd. There are the same amount of residents each side of the quarry so why are there only signs on one side?

The quarry traffic has increased threefold in the last 5 years and the dust is a health hazard for the residents. The state of the road is caused by the quarry traffic as there are few stock trucks and tankers using it. These signs do not have to legally be obeyed, especially as the legal “30 temporary " signs are totally ignored.

The road surface is appalling and not helped by visits from a grader whose main function seems to be to put the gravel into the ditches and knock over the odd letterbox. The grader does nothing to improve the surface.

Gibbons Rd is winding with one way bridges so there is no way it should be 100 kmh. There are pets and small children living on this road and the residents have to take care to drive their vehicles out their gates. Appeals to the quarry and the council have little or no effect so the hope is that your publication will be able to help.

Jen Muir
Mangawhai


Disgusted with trash
In response to ‘Snippets’, Buzz in the Bay, page 6, last issue of the Mangawhai Focus.

Readers may be shocked or surprised to learn that the Whangarei Motorcycle Club threw some of its Ruakaka track clearance trash onto the adjacent Department of Conservation (DOC) land in the Ruakaka dunes. Boundary fencing was damaged in the process.

Perhaps members will now arrange with DOC to come and clean up the mess.

Disgusted.
MB Hicks

Independent Ruakaka Waste Water Treatment member