Bluff improvement wish-list commended

EDITOR – P Chengalroyan (letter published in the SUN dated April 10) is to be commended for his suggestions and concerns as to how the Bluff could be improved.

Besides being an asset, a facility such as community hall is overdue.

I lobbied for it in the 2014/15 capital budget. Unfortunately the request did not feature in the pot of city-wide improvements which are cast over a three year period.

The state of the Bluff show grounds as, another correspondent, Charlene, notes, is lamentable. Yet it is also symptomatic of what appears to be the haphazard way in which municipal infrastructure is maintained. I have raised the state of the show grounds at meetings with parks officials at Mitchell Park, to no avail.

If council officials are unable to maintain such facilities, the suggestion of a park in the Kings Rest area is difficult to endorse for fear that it too might languish.

Suggestions for improvements at the beaches are, unfortunately, tied up in the whole beaches upgrade proposals. On this point, I must express dismay. Nowhere in the draft capital budget is there any mention of funding towards those proposals. The same concern needs to be made as regards the R39-million Donnelly Road housing project.

As regards the taxis, thanks to the efforts of Bluff Alliance member Ivor Aylward, Metro authorities have intervened to head off what seemed destined to become a taxi rank outside the Bluff Towers in Tara Road.

Regarding a bridge link between the CBD and Bluff, such a suggestion has been on a wish list for over 30 years. The two most obvious link points, in terms of economy and practicality, are the Point area and the Bluff headland.

But what militates against it is that the Bluff headland is a heritage site. Putting a major road through that headland, with all the concomitant traffic issues, in all likelihood would not receive an EIA approval.

COUNCILLOR DUNCAN DU BOIS