Re: Grey St project concerns, April 27.
I’d like to thank people for all the phone calls and personal support following my letter to the editor — no negative feedback, all positive, very rewarding.
I’m very disappointed with Tairāwhiti Adventure Trust and the council for slipping through this “Streets for People” project.
This length of Grey Street is classified as a principal route in the roading hierachy and in GDC’s wisdom they have changed the name to an activity street.
Combining storytelling and artwork into road safety designs is not good engineering practice.
I feel the cultural paraphernalia was included because TAT knew that after a trial of two years duration, it would be virtually impossible to go back to the status quo as it would be seen as racist.
Apart from the cultural input and removing pohutukawa trees, my concern is to leave the straight through Kahutia Street as it is.
GDC had already put in traffic calming measures on the corner of Carnarvon, Kahutia and Anzac T-intersection and Roebuck and Anzac. These were removed.
To the east of Grey Street we have commercial businesses and to the west is an industrial subdivision with a straight through road, Kahutia Street, which will now be blocked off by the installation of your proposed centre road concrete planter on Grey Street. This is stupid.
Further, funded activities should undergo robust consultation with community members and business owners, and work on programmes which are not aligned with NZTA’s core purposes or with the Government Policy Statement on land transport should be discontinued.
Tiny Thompson
