Every time any new and large development takes place in Kāpiti it changes who we are. Not all are bad though but there are others that have an ongoing impact that diminishes the coast as a beautiful place to live.
The new proposed expressway is exactly that. Many years ago when I was the Ranger on Kāpiti Island a visiting Canadian Ranger passed this quote onto me. ‘The law Of Diminishing Expectations’ end of quote.
I have carried it with me for the last 30 years or more and think about it frequently.
One needs to think only a little see the implications.
When I was a boy living in Waikanae I gathered toheroa from the beaches and mum made fritters and soup with them, I dragged a net with friend and caught huge numbers of sole, flounder and snapper. I caught plenty of whitebait in the Waimeha stream, I bobbed eels in the river, I shot rabbits on the sand dunes north of Waikanae.
We lit fires anywhere on the beach and had feasts of pipi and cockels done on a piece of corrugated iron over the embers.
For me I at least still have the memories but for the generations born after 1960 these experiences or memories do not exist.
They have diminished expectations.
If the expressway goes in those of us who oppose it will remember what it was once like but the new generations will in ignorance accept less than we did
Basically that is what it all about. ‘The Law Of Diminishing Expectations’ is all about totally accepting less and less and less because that is what they will grow up with!
