15 minute read
CAMBRIDGE NEWS THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2022
from Cambridge News | April 7, 2022
by Cambridge News, King Country News, Te Awamutu News & Waikato Business News
THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2022 Complaint made over quarry
By Mary Anne Gill
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An opponent to a planned quarry just south of Cambridge has told the Waikato Regional Council he believes an unconsented sand quarry is operating in the same area.
Rhys Powell lodged a complaint with the council on Friday alleging Beacon Hill Contracting, which has a sand quarry at its registered office – 599 Oreipunga Road, Maungatautari – is operating illegally.
Wayne Allan, Waipā District Council group manager District Growth and Regulatory, said there was a small sand quarry on the land and the council would conduct a further investigation as to whether consent was required for it.
“We currently have no consents on record for this quarry, however farm quarries (for material used on-farm) are a permitted activity in the rural zone.”
Elwyn Andree-Wiltens, who was elected unopposed for the Maungatautari ward at the 2019 local body elections, has a 25 per cent shareholding in the company and lives across the road from the quarry.
Powell lives in French Pass Road which would border a proposed sand quarry 2kms east of Cambridge. He alleges the giant quarry would see 200 trucks a day visiting the site and travelling through the town. There were huge health, environmental and cultural issues if the quarry next to his property was allowed to proceed, he said.
Beacon Hill Contracting is described on its website as a family-owned earthmoving company operation which initially carried out general farm maintenance and has now moved on to major farm conversion jobs with large scale earth-moving projects. Companies Office records show the company was formed in August 2012.
In recent years the company’s work base diversified into civil works, drainage and roading while working alongside local and regional councils for project consents, the website says.
The other shareholders, each with 25 per cent, are Albert, Mark and Julia Andree-Wiltens with the two men as directors.
The News approached the company and Cr AndreeWiltens for comment. No response had been received when The News went to print.
The regional council confirmed it had received a complaint about the Maungatautari quarry.
Powell said after he found out about the planned quarry next to his property in French Pass Road, he went looking on Google Earth for other mining operations in the area.
That is when he saw the quarry in Oreipunga Road which is visible from across the Waikato River at Little Waipā Reserve on Horahora Road.
“This is the first (quarry) we found, we are looking at others as well,” he said.
Rhys Powell . The painting Cambridge artist Carole Hughes is donating as a fundraiser for the RSA.
A large painting of poppies by one of Cambridge’s leading artists, Carole Hughes, is being auctioned this month to raise funds for the Cambridge and Te Awamutu branches of the Returned Services Association (RSA).
Bidding in the silent auction fundraiser opened at 5.30pm on Monday, and will close at noon on April 26, with the winner to be notified on April 29. The highest bid will win the painting, and funds will be split equally between Cambridge and Te Awamutu RSAs.
Carole has called the painting ‘In Flanders Fields’ in honour of the famous memorial poem of the same name written during World War One by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, after he presided over the 1915 funeral of a fellow soldier who died at Ypres. The poem was published in the same year in the London magazine, Punch, and has become one of the most quoted war poems of all time.
Carole is a well-known expressionist artist whose bold fauve art style has seen her work exhibited throughout New Zealand. She donated the poppies painting to raise funds for the RSA because of her own family links to World War Two. She gave the work to Cambridge News, and Te Awamutu News, and it is through the newspapers that the silent auction is being managed. The painting will be displayed at the Te Awamutu RSA rooms to 4pm on April 15, and at Cambridge Unichem from April 16 to noon on April 26. RSA District president, and president of the Cambridge RSA, Tony Hill, said: “We are very grateful to Carole for the effort she has put into this. The money raised through the auction will go into our Poppy Trust to be distributed to our veterans and their families. Many of those we help are contemporary, younger veterans who have been involved in conflicts such as Afghanistan and Iraq. They also need our assistance, and we are incredibly appreciative for this opportunity to raise funds.” He urged all veterans in the region to contact their local RSA if they needed support. Te Awamutu RSA secretary/manager Graeme Ambler said all the funds coming across to Te Awamutu through the auction would be distributed through their Poppy Trust to veterans in their area. Bids should be emailed to admin@ goodlocal.nz, and email should include the bidder’s name, email address and phone number.
COMMUNITY HEALTH FORUM
What matters to your COMMUNITY
Due to COVID-19 alert level restrictions at this time this hui will be online
We have a focus on enabling better access to local community health and wellbeing for people living with a disability/wha - nau haua . Topics include - COVID-19 update and discussion on the new health and disability systems.
Join us online and share your knowledge and experience as we work together on this. THESE MEETINGS ARE OPEN TO EVERYONE
Waikato Regional Disability Hui / Wha -nau Haua - Forum
(Hosted by the Waikato Disabled Persons Assembly) Sign language interpreters will also be in attendance Monday 11 April: 10am - 12noon If interested please email: helena.tuteao@mylifemyvoice.org.nz for a Zoom link to the meeting or Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81234467328
WE ACCEPT THESE CARDS
By Peter Carr
My editor’s brief - when he persuaded me and a couple of others to commence writing opinion pieces two and a half years ago – was to look after the interests of those of advancing years.
I respect the views of my fellow opinion writers Peter (futurist) and Murray (ecumenical interests) who usually stick relatively closely to the opinion pathway dictated by the editor. I generally attempt to keep within my given parameters although, from time to time, straying into other matters of wider interest. And it is pleasing to be the recipient of many comments of which the majority, thankfully, are supportive.
That said, in a perfect world, anyone who sticks their head up above the fourth estate parapet must expect the occasional opprobrium-laden blast. And I get my fair share of those.
So, this week I will fall into line and look at the plights of some of the old ‘uns.
And my beef is simply this. If we are an ageing society and if the costs of living are rising above our planned retirement income, how shall we all exist? It is no secret that my wife and I reside happily within the confines of a well run and friendly retirement village. Sure, from time to time the odd boil bursts out and a (very small) World War III erupts but generally (and happily) the boil recedes, and the skin is smooth again. Common however to all those residents has been the financial ability to be able to purchase the contract that binds us all to this collective security, social enjoyment and a caring management. And with a brand new and large care centre being built on the premises it cannot all be bad.
But the village and the 400 or so others in the country are well populated because the residents scrimped and saved throughout their lives generally building up equity on several residences they owned. Or if rural bound in early years, improved the value of the land that they tilled or upon which they displayed good animal husbandry.
But all this is changing as, for a couple of years, I have been advocating a view that within 10 years from now there will arrive a large group of people who have not taken the property equity growth path. Either because they chose not to or, and especially currently, because they cannot afford to buy and maintain worthwhile residential assets. Either way they are not following the normal save for retirement path.
Of all people over 65 years who are employed, a quarter work for the savings they will use later in life. But 29 per cent work because their financial ability to enjoy life ahead is not compatible with their acumen to either save, or are short of that requisite equity for forthcoming change. Ten years ago, two per cent of the working population was older than 65 years. It is now seven per cent.
My warning to the retirement village industry is that in 10 years there will be a paucity of retirees who can afford to buy into retirement village life. The nice villas and apartments will turn into rental properties.
The buy-in cost to village care centres will also be beyond the reach of these people - throwing them onto the finance-restricting domain of district health boards – or whatever replaces them.
By Murray Smith, Senior Leader, Bridges Church
The downhill slalom at the Winter Olympics is an exciting event. Skiers hurtle around alternating red and blue ‘gates’ weaving their way to the finish in the shortest time possible. Missing one means disqualification.
The official Olympics website states downhill skiers reach speeds of 130kph although they can travel up to 160kph depending on the course.
During one Winter Olympics, a contingent of people were ‘camera bombing’ the vicinity of where the world’s best skiers were battling it out in the downhill slalom event.
They waved painted placards with the wording ‘John 3:16’ slapped on them and drew an international television audience’s attention.
Two commentators conducted a live narration as competitors took their turns in an effort to complete the downhill slalom course faster than any of their rivals.
The commentators back and forth banter was interesting and inevitably their attention was drawn to the John 3:16 placard crowd. Their conversation went something like this…
Commentator A: “So what do you make of these supporters waving John 3:16 signs? Can you offer our viewers insight into what exactly these signs are about?
Commentator B: “Well I’m not exactly sure, but I believe that ‘John…’ (giving full name of a competitor and the country he represented) has a lot of support among the crowd… he’s a popular figure in the sport, as these skiers vie for lowest points… as for the 3:16, I believe fans are reminding John that he holds third place at the moment and he cannot accrue any more penalty points to his current ’16’ in order to retain a podium position.”
Commentator B was wider off the mark than any skier could ever get navigating a gate on the course. John 3:16 is actually a reference to a verse in the Bible.
Spelled out plainly it is the most famously known sentence in the whole Bible being found in the third chapter and the sixteenth verse of the Gospel of John.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
The placard wavers’ intention of inspiring people to open a Bible and read this important verse had validity - irrespective of views regarding their strategy.
I say this since there’s inescapable truth in these words that everyone must deal with. Time marches on… death comes to everyone, yet so many will not inherit eternal life. Defining our eternal state is a choice - rejecting or believing in God’s Son.
John, a disciple of Jesus, wrote his Gospel as it appears in the New Testament section of the Bible.
He states emphatically why he wrote of his experiences during the time he spent with Jesus.
“These things have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and that by believing you might experience eternal life in reliance on him.” (John 20:31)
May the urgency in John’s appeal speak loudly today…
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An Easter/school holidays photography competition run by The Sculpture Park in Tauwhare is offering a range of prizes. ‘50 Shades of Autumn 2022’, will run at the park from April 15 to May 2 and winners will be announced just before Mother’s Day on May 8.
The four categories are primary school age, secondary school age, tertiary and adult. Contestants will be limited to two photographs each, and they will be judged by Stuff photographer Mark Taylor. A $20 competition entry fee or adults will contribute towards the cost of printing the top five tertiary and adult category photographs for an exhibition at Welcome Swallow Gallery in Hamilton East. Entry to the competition is free for children and tertiary students. Park entry still applies.
The 17.5 ha park at Waitakaruru Arboretum was created out of the former Tauwhare quarry by its founders, Dorothy and John Wakeling. It now contains more than 20,000 trees and shrubs
from all over the world, and in 2003 hosted its first sculpture event, displaying 47 sculptures in a fundraiser for Hospice Waikato. Now recognised as one of the country’s largest outdoor galleries, the park has more than 100 sculptures and installations and is run by the Art-in-Nature Arboretum Trust. This image by Susan Savill won last year’s photography competition in the adult category. “The park provides great subject matter at this time of year, with the leaves changing colour, fungi popping up and late summer/autumn flowers blooming.” Trust secretary Dorothy Wakeling said. Among the prizes on offer are park entry vouchers and family passes, garden packs, art supplies and gift vouchers. Entry forms are via the website www. sculpturepark.co.nz
Cambridge economist Peter Nicholl has received an international award for his work as governor of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Nicholl, who writes a regular column for The News, received the Central Banking Institute’s award last month for outstanding contribution to capacity building.
The 78-year-old Hamilton born, and Cambridgeraised banking consultant is delighted to get the recognition 18 years after he finished at the bank.
In 1997 he was recruited from the International Monetary Fund in Washington, where he had moved two years previously after 22 years with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, to lead Bosnia’s first central bank.
He and wife Glynyss Watkins, also an economist, undertook an audit of the central bank which revealed the bank had little capital and almost no income.
They also helped design Bosnia’s new currency after there had been so much debate, no one could decide on anything.
When he left the bank in 2004, the country had low inflation and a stable exchange rate.
The family, which now included daughter Lily, moved to Italy in 2006 – the same year he was awarded a QSM for his services in Bosnia, before returning to New Zealand seven years ago.
It was to Cambridge they went, Nicholl happy to be back where he grew up and went to school – at Cambridge Primary and High schools.
His family originally farmed on St Kilda Road, opposite where a new housing subdivision now is. Nicholl had left school in the 1960s to work for five years on the family dairy farm before taking up a job with Federated Farmers in Hamilton.
While there he studied economics through Massey part time and then achieved an Honour’s Degree in economics and accounting from Victoria University.
He tells the story of how at a job interview for a position overseas, when asked where he studied, Nicholl said “Cambridge.” So impressed were the interviewers, he got the job.
Since his return home, Nicholl has been a ministry-
Peter Nicholl has received an honour – 18 years after leaving the Central Banks of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
appointed member of the Bay of Plenty District Health Board and a banking consultant.
He has a reputation of being able to explain economics in a noneconomic way and is often described as eastern Europe’s best central bank governor.
His passion for rugby – he once played for Hautapu – means he will soon be writing for The News wearing a sportswriter’s hat rather than an economist’s one. Nicholl would be the first to say they are not that different.
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