SERVICES NEEDED
A recent press release advised that 1600 homes and a shopping centre had been approved for Wilton. We moved into Horsley (previously West Dapto) in 1997. There were only a few homes past Homestead Drive and Bong Bong Road shops. Since then, over 10,000 homes have been built in Horsley, Brookes Reach, West Dapto and Wongawilli areas. It is envisaged that 10-15,000 more homes will be built in the area, including Kembla Grange, Wongawilli etc in the next 10 years or so. It is very noticeable of developments taking place, with new roads and homes being built almost daily, there are no shops or schools at this stage being built to cater for the population explosion. Population will increase by some 15,000 in the next decade and Dapto Mall is saturated, no parking and continual congestion on Bong Bong Road. Not sure what council, State Government & developers have planned for a major shopping centre, which is desperately needed in West Dapto, also schools to cater for the children moving into the area. Maybe someone has answers.
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Terry Stretton, Dapto
LAKE UNDERUTILISED
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to sit at a coffee shop somewhere around the Lake foreshore ... all we have is an ugly Fish and Chippie facing the wrong way?
Susan Phillips, Dapto
DON'T IGNORE DATA
Graham Johnston makes the common error of mistaking on-off, local weather events for climate change ("Climate change predictions", 18/11). What's important are averages and trends. The southwest and southeast parts of the country are drying. Over the last 50 years, the winter rainfall in southwest Western Australia for example has been around 20 per cent less than the 1900 to 1969 average. Australia's average temperature from 2011 to 2020 was the highest on record. All years since 2013 have been amongst the 10 warmest. These Bureau of Meteorology measurements are not the "predictions of false prophets" but hard data and we would be foolish to ignore them.
Ray Peck, Hawthorn
NO MORE METER READERS
I well remember the electricity meter that once kept tabs on my power consumption. It read Property of Wollongong Council, and was ripped out as being too old, and no longer anywhere near accurate for today's electricity measurement. In the Depression there was a trick pulled by a few people who, as soon as the meter reader had departed, taped the magnet from an old speaker to the front of the meter to unbalance the built-in mechanism which measured the current flow through the meter. Talking to an Origin Energy chap, he tells me that meter readers would very soon be a thing of the past as online monitoring is very near to arrival.
Dave Cox, Corrimal
MACRON KNEW THE SCORE
Macron knew as far back as June the submarine contract was in danger of being cancelled and Australia was looking at alternatives. Two weeks before the AUKUS negotiations were concluded the PM tried to contact Macron by telephone. Macron responded with the following text: "Should I expect good or bad news for our joint submarine ambitions?". The contract cancellation was no surprise to Macron.
Richard Burnett, Wollongong
