Merivale Mall

Press, 15 August 1978, Page 16

Merivale Mall

Sir, — Your editorial “The Merivale Mall dispute’’ fails to distinguish between the Merivale Village and the total suburb called Merivale. This large residential area whose people, homes and home-life are threatened by ever-increasing activities by “developers” and by speeding 24-hour traffic on every cross street as well as arterial roads is what the Merivale protest is really about. Come to Merivale Lane at 3 p.m. on a Thursday and watch pupils from four schools streaming into Papanui Road and Rossall Street, to be engulfed in a whirl of impatient motorcyclists, thundering trucks, tight processions of cars and darting pedestrians. Try penetrating the shambles round the village to park at the supermarket. Watch the children from Elmwood and Heaton Intermediate braving the crossings. Return in the quiet of a Sunday morning and note the stark, ugly asphalt wastes surrounding the Carlton Hotel, the supermarket, and the wine and spirits shop. Can you questic the resistance of residents with any civic sense? — Yours, etc., (Mrs) V. F. JOBBERNS. August 14, 1978.

Sir, — In an undertaking of this sort the community must have a right to help choose the development that it considers most appropriate, and by-laws should protect any similar area from unsuitable, commercial exploitation. A community should also have power to protect its future environmental quality; yet there is a subtle sabotage. Some large developers and chain stores forbid their tenants and employees to become involved in community affairs or to support any sort of protest, however legitimate. Public participation in planning, an essential and overdue development, is still not properly understood or practised in New Zealand, but the fault lies with us — and not our planners — that we are underlings. Not even at a local level can politics be delegated; they are the concern of each individual. — Yours, etc., JANET R. HOLM. August 12, 1975.