Council uses CLIMATE CHANGE excuse

Phil Goff suggests recent floods in Auckland are our own fault. Writing in the April OURAUCKLAND magazine, the Mayor offers his sympathy to families whose homes were damaged but then says with climate change and global warming we all have to expect more of these extreme weather events and says “we need to plan for that, and work hard to meet our commitments to reducing greenhouse gases”. No mention of Council’s woeful performance in this area. Our Mayor needs to get his head out of the clouds and take a serious look at infrastructure maintenance and planning in our city. Drains and storm water systems are not being maintained properly, infill housing and new developments are being built ahead of the infrastructure upgrades needed to cope with the increased storm water run-off. Council used to have a Works Department with community depots and local people staffing them. With these local people came in depth knowledge of the areas past problem points and storm water bottlenecks, this played a big part in Council having a proactive response to maintenance, not the reactive attitude we see these days. And when it comes to reducing our fossil fuel usage the Mayor should look again at Councils pathetic performance. Driving around putting up red cones after the big rains in West Auckland three weeks ago then returning a week later to photograph the blockages is a waste of fuel. What is needed is one truck and several men with shovels. The drains overflowed again in the heavy rain of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and I bet they’ll still be blocked for more heavy rain forecast next week. I would like our Mayor to use his shovels to unblock a few thousand drains before he plants his 1 million trees.