LETTERS & EMAILS
PIPPA COOM’S MARCH COLUMN I must respond to the March editorial from Councillor Pippa Coom, where she was expressing personal anger and frustration for not being able to achieve her personal agenda of ripping Ponsonby Road apart, and having cycle lanes installed as soon as she possibly can. A similar project to the one undertaken in West Lynn village with her full support turned out to be a disaster. She talks of the “vocal minority and personal attacks”, typical frustrations for an elected official. Would she also class the young protestors of Hong Kong and Myanmar protesting against their elected leaders actions as “a vocal minority?”. Thank goodness we have ‘actionists’ in our community who stand up when they don’t agree to being bulldozed by our elected representatives, who often have their own agenda and do not talk and listen to the community and our concerns. It is often the vocal minority who speak on behalf of the apathetic majority. I find the tone of Ms Coom’s article to be confrontational when she talks of the “battleground for Ponsonby Road”, her support for the dysfunctional Auckland Transport (AT) (the subject of recent investigation not working fast enough), and her disturbingly lack of community consultative approach to engage with all to achieve the best outcome for Ponsonby Road users, businesses and locals. Surely she needs to consider the considerable number who didn’t vote for her, as well as the very small majority who did. This council have taken a sad slow response to the growing problem of Auckland traffic woes, with us now having gridlocked streets at rush hours and weekends, motorway travel at speeds at 60k or less due to crowded roads, and a harbour crossing which can grind the city to a halt at any moment. The disgraced current state of Queen Street is bewildering. Where has been the bold approach needed to meet the needs of this growing city? There are many approaches implemented by other international cities to this situation which we could learn from. Ponsonby Road is designated an arterial road – as defined by AT: “Regional arterial roads link districts or urban areas within the region, connect regionally significant facilities, and play a critical role in the movement of people and goods within the region. It is essential that they operate efficiently and effectively, and are managed and developed in a manner that is sensitive to the surrounding environment.” Whether they be two lanes or six lanes – the last sentence is the outcome which needs to be considered carefully. I was excited to be part of the group working to look at ways to revitalise the road. There are some positives that will come from this AT funded initiative, but also frustrations that from the $1m given by AT, all we will end up with is $400k to do ‘something‘ after consultants fees have been deducted. If AT had come to our group with $1m, I can now only dream of what we COULD have achieved... pavement upgrades, more planting, public seating areas, art installations; that would be plenty to get people back onto the streets. It will never return to the quietness and safety it was during Covid-19 lockdown, and delusional to think it could by Ms Coom’s proposals. AT tell us a busload of people gets 50 cars off the road, so we must look at how we can make major changes to our transport system to achieve major change. We do want people walking and cycling more if they want to, but its not going to achieve the huge impact we need to make now.
If AT and Ms Coom and her councilors are committed to climate change, making Ponsonby Rd more vibrant, safer – then put some funds into the sad state of the pavements on the strip, finish the planting of trees as outlined in the Ponsonby Road Plan she initiated. Put the funds into the Project #254 Ponsonby Rd ($2.5m) - surely a more sensible spend of funds and result than the outrageous unnecessary splurge of over $2m on pulling down trees in Western Springs Forest, where Auckland Council once again failed to engage in proper and fair consultation, and chose to ignore professional recommendations. Our city and business relies on quick efficient transport options; walking, cycling, vehicles, all must be accommodated, but not at the expense of local businesses who pay heavily to council and landlords for prime positions on densely populated streets. Changing the current design drastically could see a big change to our current ‘vibrant’ Ponsonby Road. Darryl Ojala, Grey Lynn WESTERN SPRINGS FOREST My conscience led me to climb on to a digger before dawn with the intent to stop the destruction at Western Springs. This was done in the hope of drawing attention to the lack of consultation with community over this issue. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.” This was my time. What prompted this “elderly grandmother” to take such action? In January, as a direct result of the lack of maintenance by the Auckland Council at Western Springs, I was admitted to hospital. On discharge I attempted to contact the appropriate person to report both the incident and the need to remedy the cause before another member of the community was hurt. My experience alerted me to how dysfunctional the Auckland Council is. This experience changed me from apathy to the need to become actively community minded. I could write pages about how I became aware of the Council’s agenda to remove mature trees from around Auckland, sell off reserves in built up areas, but the icing on the cake was what is happening at Western Springs. Never have I willingly broken the law, but I was prepared to be arrested in order to have my voice and protest heard. Getting onto the digger was not the problem I thought it would be, as amazingly there was no security. To my surprise I soon found myself joined by a woman who I later learnt was Sarah Trotman, a local board member. She told me she had been phoned by a concerned constituent who had seen an elderly woman going into the trees. Sarah, still in her pyjamas, grabbed a coat and joined me out of concern for my safety. Sarah promised to stay, as long as I didn’t carry out my plan to climb onto the arm of the digger, and instead remain in a safer position on the digger platform. I got to know and admire Sarah over those few hours and heard her concerns at the lack of authentic engagement with communities by Auckland Council. Sitting there as the sun rose we heard the call of a morepork from amongst the trees, and later witnessed the abundance of native bird life this area supports. All this in an inner city suburban environment the council wants to destroy. All I ask is a decent future for our children and grandchildren. I was, and still am, prepared to be arrested if that is what it takes for my voice and protest to be heard. To quote Edmond Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” So let’s all stand united and change what we need to. Linda Hill, Westmere continued p24
Opinions expressed in Ponsonby News are not always the opinion of Alchemy Media Limited & Ponsonby News.
6 PONSONBY NEWS+ May 2021
PUBLISHED FIRST FRIDAY EACH MONTH (except January)
