Message to Lee: keep rubbish close to home
As a resident of Winton I would like to inform Cr Lee Vandervis that many of us here do not want refuse from other centres outside our province coming to AB Lime’s site.
Build your own. We don’t want to be the dumping ground for other provinces’ refuse/waste.
Dunedin has been dithering for 32 years. Just imagine what could have been done with the $85.4 million if action had been taken all those years ago when $7m was mooted. Consultancy fees have cost Dunedin ratepayers huge sums too.
Anyway, why on earth are you talking landfill when very efficient incinerators are available and are multifunctional?
Jacqui Legg
Winton
Contradictory votes?
Dunedin City Council just voted to go ahead with the Smooth Hill landfill.
So on one hand they want to dig a big hole on Smooth Hill, so we can truck our rubbish there. But on the very same day they debated carbon-friendly projects.
The landfill in Winton could be accessed by rail, so no need to burn tons and tons of diesel to build a new landfill that will never be accessible by rail. Looking for carbon-friendly projects?
Eduard Walthert
Glenleith
Being dumped on
Many Dunedin councillors today (27.5.25) in their meeting say they don’t support “at any cost dumping landfill waste on other regions”.
Good to hear but I’m a bit confused over their values when they support dumping diverted sewage waste from the hill suburbs on South Dunedin?
Lynne Newell
Dunedin
Which side are you on?
Last Friday, another round of cuts to our hospital was revealed: after five long years of construction, the government will deliver a facility with 26 fewer beds than the current hospital, which is already over capacity.
This would plainly be a disaster for the South. If this plan goes ahead it will increase waiting times for ED and for life-saving surgeries, and will ultimately force many who need frequent care out of the city. Our honorable Mayor, Jules Radich, has welcomed the announcement as “a great result”.
Even ignoring his ethical and democratic responsibilities, this is an election year; Jules has little to lose and everything to gain by opposing these cuts. I cannot fathom why he is assenting to this plan which will plainly cause great harm to the city. Which side are you on, Jules?
Mickey Treadwell
Dunedin
[Mickey Treadwell is a Green mayoral candidate.]
What He says
Re “Claim hub sale call guided by God” (ODT 24.5.25), I would have been surprised had it been otherwise: the decision to sell was made after “the local churches in the region discerned the mind of Christ together over a long period of time . . . together they felt this was the decision God would have them make.”
Is it likely that after consultation among a group of like-thinking people strongly desirous of selling the property, they would not get the desired response from their God?
A neutral arbitrator would have been equally persuasively informed regarding current claims of rightful use of the property, and history of the provision of the land, buildings and improvements over the time it has been used both as a religious and community facility.
K. Nordal Stene
Dunedin
Good try but China can be seen another way
Mercy Fonoti’s article on the rise of China (Opinion ODT 23.5.25) was an admirable attempt at trying to be evenhanded, but it still failed.
This is because it views China through a Western minority world lens, which has at its core a deliberate omission of historical context, painting the actions of China as either capricious acts or interpreting their motivations as if they are the same kinds of imperialistic motivations that Western nations have had for 500 years.
The “contradictions” of China’s behaviour she cites are not contradictions at all. Their actions in the South China Sea are solely in response to the Obama administration’s initiation of “The Pivot to Asia” in 2011, which has at its core the military containment of China. As part of this, the US and its allies conduct an annual naval exercise, explicitly practising the closure of the Straits of Molucca through which the huge bulk of China’s exports and imports transit.
At the same time on the eastern side of the SCS, America and its allies began ramping up relatively dormant diplomatic and military relations with Taiwan in contravention of agreements going back 50 years, that recognise the island as Chinese sovereign territory, to a point where the Biden administration actually stated they would militarily defend Taipei from invasion – an explicit abandoning of five decades of strategic ambiguity.
In response, China activated its long but disputed claim to the SCS (and built its own equally illegal Diego Garcia type island base close to the Straits of Molucca) and conducts naval exercises off Taiwan (and in the Tasman Sea).
These are defensive acts in response to obvious provocation, not signs of any kind of expansionist agenda.
Andrew Nichols
Kew
Mushrooms, ridge lines, and mould
Re the recent article on the MBIE inspection of student flats.
I have the greatest sympathy for the tenants suffering damp and mushrooms as I did almost within the photograph where Liam White is standing, in an old masonry house where the damp proof course had failed, some decades ago.
I went to extreme lengths to replace the foundations and damp proof course and was thrilled when I managed to persuade the next door neighbour to do the same much more efficiently than I had via a masonry saw.
However, seeing from a careful read of the article that most of the problems with the flats, apart from three which seemed to be in a bad way, were the same minor home maintenance issues that most home owners of old villas would find if they inspected their own home, I feel that the whole thing is what people refer to as a beat-up these days.
Yes, spouting is important.
Twice a year, I have to deal with young troublemakers attempting (and succeeding) to climb onto the roof of a flat in that area. I’ve even seen photos of about 20 of them sitting on the ridge line multiple times. Despite this, I believe non-functioning heat pumps are a more pressing issue.
Ironically, their survey actually proves the opposite point – that the majority of flats in the area, despite the abuse they endure, are in good condition. This has led me to agree for the first time with the government’s decision to reduce the number of government employees.
This situation reminds me of a survey from a few years ago where all houses failed, including brand-new ones. I know someone whose house failed because the footpath was always wet, but it turned out the issue was actually a leaking spouting.
George Livingstone
Roslyn
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