Priorities are amiss! A cycling hope...

I have been a ratepayer in this ne city for a relatively short time. What staggered me most was that a city that receives some 1500mm of rain per year did not have a reliable water supply with restrictions being applied for months during the summer. ere still does not appear to be any proposed reservoir construction – but funds can be found for a $250m stadium. Will the Commissioners, Nigel Tutt, and the Priority One group give personal guarantees to nance any budget overruns that will inevitably occur? Priorities are amiss! R Sapwell, Bethlehem. TCC replies: We’re planning for growth and resilience in Tauranga’s water network. As a rapidly growing city, we must adjust to changing environmental challenges by following good water conservation practices.

It’s important we are mindful of our water use all year round, and that’s why we launched the Tauranga Water Watchers plan. e streams providing our city with water are aquifer fed and rely on regular rain to replenish these aquifers.

During periods of drought or drier than normal weather these aquifers are not recharged at a rate that the city is using water – this is why we ask you to conserve water when it is hot. When it is wet, the rainfall is great for replenishing the aquifers that supply our streams. However, high rainfall stirs up dirty sediment in the streams which makes treating the water a lot harder.

We’ve recently celebrated the opening of the Waiāri Water Supply Scheme, which has boosted reliability in our water supply and will future proof Tauranga’s water demands for the next 30 years.

I have been to the Mount a few times in the past month and going on Maunganui Rd to Hewletts Rd, where the lovely cycleway is, I have not seen one bike rider on the cycleway. I saw on Saturday, July 14, three girls on e-scooters but they were on the footpath. My only hope that the cycleway being built on Cameron Rd will get more use. I rarely see a bike rider on the parts of cycleway that are complete. I, like many others, really feel for the business owners not only during construction of bus lanes and cycleways but in the future when most of the parking outside shops will have gone.

Wendy Galloway, Omokoroa.