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Rotorua Review : May 22nd 2013
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ROTORUAREVIEW NGA HUINGA KORERO O ROTORUA *ABC circulation 24,218 (December 2012) Wednesday, May 22, 2013 www.rotoruareview.co.nz Phone 07 349 1870 www.golds.co.nz to find 10 Quick Ways to Lose Weight go to hospice awareness week See the Special Lift Out feature & Donation Envelope inside! 5389300AA Businesses in dire straits EXPECT DELAYS: The Lake Road roadworks. Photo: BENN BATHGATE By BENN BATHGATE LOSING $10,000 a week for more than a year has pushed the Gull petrol station on Lake Road to the brink of closure. Owner Glenys Rigby is not alone in her condemnation of the council s handling of the $14 mil- lion upgrade project which com- menced in November 2011. It was scheduled to finish in April but that date has now been pushed back to mid-June. We used to do $40,000 a week and now it s less than $30,000, said Mrs Rigby. It was OK until they dropped the bridge and that s been over a year now. That s when it hit us, people avoided Lake Road like the plague. Cleveland Motel owner Brij Gurm said he had seen a 40 per cent drop-off in his business. This has been a disaster. It almost killed us. He said the motel s reliance on out-of-town customers made them more vul- nerable to the disruption than shops with a regular customer base. We just died and a lot of that blame is with council, poor plan- ning, he said. Suddenly, no one was coming in off the street to stay here. Wood Masters owner Peter Bjarnesen said he had lost upwards of $10,000 over the dur- ation of the work as the vibrations meant he was unable to operate certain machinery. Jayden Dickenson, co-owner of Expand A Sign NZ, said they were having to change $240 UV printer filters once a week instead of once a month because of the dust and that they faced serious problems with deliveries. Just as recently as last week there was gravel piled up in front of our driveway and we had to turn delivery trucks away, he said. One of the main criticisms levelled at the council was a lack of communication. Mr Bjarnesen said communi- cation with the council only im- proved after he enquired about how to lodge an official complaint. Since then, they ve been very good, he said. Rotorua District Council infra- structure services group manager Andrew Bell cited unforseen geotechnical and geothermal con- ditions for the delay in complet- ing the work. He also denied claims the coun- cil has failed to communicate adequately with businesses affected by the work. There has been a progress update newsletter published every seven days and made avail- able to any interested parties, he said. Information has also been regularly published on the council website and Facebook pages, there has also been further cover- age with council news published in Our Rotorua in print media, on radio and direct communication with affected businesses by con- tractors. The finished work would benefit businesses on Lake Road and the wider area, Mr Bell said. Very soon the period of disrup- tion will be behind us and we will all be able to enjoy the benefits of this vastly improved thoroughfare into our city. PM defends Government record at conference CONFERENCE: Rotorua MP Todd McClay with Prime Minister John Key at the Central North Island National Party conference. Photo: BENN BATHGATE By BENN BATHGATE PRIME Minister John Key used a speech in Rotorua on Sunday to outline the main battlegrounds for the 2014 election and attack the looney economics of the Labour and Green parties. Speaking at the National Party Central North Island Conference at the Distinction Hotel, the Prime Minister said the next election would be fought on the economy, health, education and law and order. They vote on things that matter to them. Do they have a job? Will grandma get her surgery? Is their daughter safe on the streets? Will their grandkids get a good edu- cation? In those areas that matter, we re doing really well. The Prime Minister told the audience of party members and MPs, including Rotorua s Todd McClay, that they could be confident going into the next election largely thanks to National s prudent manage- ment of the economy. He said Government debt was down, employment was up and Australia was the only OECD country with faster growth. On law and order, he said initiatives such as providing the Police with smartphones and iPads had cut paperwork time and freed up 500,000 extra hours for frontline poli- cing. Over the five years National have been in power, he said, in that time you can t find a Government that s delivered better results . He said they had guided the country through the Global Financial Crisis and the Christchurch earthquake while still increasing spending on health and education. The Prime Minister also attacked opposition proposals for the nationalisation of power companies, saying it was a fraud that would add $500 to every household s power bill. He said the political climate had shifted ahead of the next election from a centre right/ centre left battle to a centre right-far left one. The Greens are doing a reverse takeover of Labour . ASTHMA AWARENESS: While one in four asthmatics struggles to blow up a balloon James doesn't let asthma rule his life. 3 PAINT FOR A CAUSE: Enthusiasm, facepainting and donations from every eye exam helped raise money for worthy charity 10
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May 15th 2013
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