Friday 17 March 2017 A selection of some local breaking stories featured this week on...
The Weekend Sun
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Warning over bus plan Tauranga City councillors have been warned not to increase city parking fees before they increase cycle track and bus numbers in Cameron Rd.
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Supermarket – yes or no? Tauranga City Council is to seek community feedback about whether to proceed with the development of a supermarket in Welcome Bay. Council will engage with the Welcome Bay community to find out whether the development of a supermarket on a councilowned site is supported, and whether the community has a preferred site from the three options available – Waipuna Park, Waitaha Reserve or Owens Park.
Sentenced to seven years A Papamoa Head Hunter has been sentenced to seven years jail on charges ranging from harassment, intimidation and violence. Dwaine Riley, 43, was sentenced in court on Monday after being found guilty by a jury last year on 12 charges including injuring with intent to injure, kidnapping and threatening to kill. Charges of injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, assault with intent to injure and threatening to kill were representative charges, covering many separate incidents.
Fighting threats to Kiwifruit Kiwifruit Vine Health Inc has signed an agreement with the Ministry for Primary Industries to help reduce the damaging impacts of the four most common biosecurity threats to the kiwifruit and kiwiberry sectors. The operational agreement under the Government Industry Agreement for Biosecurity Readiness and Response sets out the contractual arrangements of how industry and government will work together to manage potential pests.
Bay actor pleads guilty in court Former Opotiki College student and ‘Boy’ actor James Rolleston has pleaded guilty to a dangerous driving charge over a crash that left him in a coma and a passenger injured. Appearing in the Auckland District Court, the 19-year-old pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing injury in relation to the July 2016 crash. James was left in an intensive care unit for nearly a month after his car collided with a bridge near Opotiki, while friend Kaleb Maxwell was also hurt. He’ll be sentenced in May.
Specsavers store of the year Specsavers Mount Maunganui is Specsavers Store of the Year, taking the top spot from more than 52 of the branded stores nationwide. The Mount Maunganui store also took the Overall Excellence award at the annual Specsavers Awards for Excellence held recently. Specsavers Mount Maunganui was chosen as Store of the Year for a variety of reasons.
SunLive Comment of the Week ‘Bob’s a relic…’ posted by morepork on the story ‘Boatshed days may be numbered’. “...of a gentler time when people just helped each other, took responsibility and ‘got along’. It will be a shame if he is forced out. At his age, and given his service over the years, they should give him a lifetime lease.”
BikeNow spokesman and sustainable business network co-ordinator Glen Crowther spoke about the council’s transportation plans in the public forum before this week’s Transportation Committee meeting. The committee is recommending TCC take on a multi-million programme to tackle the city’s increasing traffic congestion by moving large numbers of people onto public transport – buses. The parking fees increase is a tactic that will be used to make public transport more attractive to commuters. Currently, buses take two-and-a-half times longer to travel to the CBD than the same journey by car. This excludes waiting times. Buses are more expensive than cars, not considering car running costs. And a return bus ticket to the CBD costs just over $5. In Tauranga CBD there are more than 500 off-street carparks where the price for all-day parking ranges from $2 to $6. The average cost is $4.50.
Parking concessions work out at $2 a day. TCC is looking at investing more money into buses and radically increasing bus services along key routes in order to fight the increasing peak hour traffic congestion. The plan involves boosting bus numbers along Cameron Rd from the 16 buses an hour to 26 buses an hour – or a bus every five minutes – by 2018. This will be done by introducing priority
measures for buses – priority at lights, queue jump lanes, shared lanes and clearways for buses. If full bus lanes are installed, bus travel times along Cameron Rd would nearly halve from about 27 minutes to about 15 minutes. Putting people on the buses is expected to cost TCC about $3.5 million in capital and construction costs for things like bus interchange sites. Andrew Campbell
Is Bay of Plenty Regional Council really to the rescue? During the last few weeks I’ve discussed how Tauranga City Council can reduce rates for homeowners by adjusting the rating system, which is under our control. You may have noticed on your rates bill last month something we can’t control – the rates you pay to Bay of Plenty Regional Council. BOPRC received a dividend of $20m last year from its shares in the Port of Tauranga, which were granted to it
in 1989 when government decided that the regional council should own most of the assets of the former Bay of Plenty Harbour Board – once known as the Tauranga Harbour Board. Our port’s dividend is forecast to grow to $30m by 2025, which is significant because regional council uses it to subsidise regional rates; not only for Tauranga residents but those in Rotorua, Whakatane and Opotiki too. None of
those communities are forecast to grow during the next 30 years but Tauranga is forecast to grow by 50 per cent. The demands on our city’s finances from having to cater for growth are enormous. The Southern Sewage Pipeline is nearly complete at a cost of $100m. The Waiari Water Treatment
Plant, which we need to begin building next year to prevent water restrictions, is now forecast to cost $100m. Unlike the towns mentioned above, Tauranga residents have sacrificed nice-to-have projects such as a museum to accommodate more residents. As a voter, you might think regional council should spend the money generated in Tauranga on Tauranga. As a TCC councillor, I couldn’t possibly comment!