Signs of the times. More water under the Bridge?

Auckland City Council passed their bill board banning bylaw yesterday.

Got to wonder why they bothered. If has been ammended out of all recognition and now doesn't ban bill boards and other overlarge signs at all. Instead it contains an undertaking to negotiate the removal of bill boards from heritage building over the next 5 years and a ban on illegal bill boards.

A ban on illegal bill boards. Duh!

Typical over watered down response to a bold new outrage sparking plan.

No wonder Auckland has such bad inferstucture problems.

Take water for example.

No, not the drinking stuff that comes through pipes although that is indirectly involved. I am talking about what the council refers to as waste water.

That isn't just the smelly stuff that one should bury neatly in the garden after doing one's business. It is the stuff that falls from the sky as well in large quantities. South of the coat hanger it all goes into the same old pipes.

Very old pipes.

In some cases over 100 year old pipes.

This, of course has been causing a problem for years, decades. Every time it rains and our rainfall isn't exactly low.

Every elected council since the days of Sir Dove Myer Robinson has been putting the problem in the too hard/too expensive basket. Now the shit isn't just flowing down Motions Creek in heavy rain. Yes, that is a real stream with a real sewage overflow problem and that is its real name. Okay that may be a slight exaggeration but the fact remains. The system running at over capacity and it is leaking badly.

The present council has decided to do something about it in the next 10 years and not before time. North Shore put a plan in place to fix their own aging undersides sewer problem many years ago. Not many overflows here anymore. Auckland City council has even come up with a plan to pay for it.

Greatly increased water charges.

I can hear the howls of indignation from here.

It will be interesting to see if this council backs down or starts installing the Dick Hubbard memorial sewage and storm water system.

Just as long as they don't wind up following that earlier plan of their's and pipe it over the coat hanger to North Shore's Lake Rosedale.