A London reader revisits the genesis of middle class fashionable discontent

I have followed the MoW revisited discussion from afar and with great curiosity. I would like to add now my recollections. In my view the original reason for what can only be described as the diabolical aura that attached itself to the old Ministry of Works was the Wellington urban motorway (pictured) which necessarily tore a swath through the capital’s main student flatting area in Thorndon. This precipitated Wellington’s accommodation shortage which exists to this day.

The resentment that this detonated was not immediately evident and the Ministry of Works was allowed to work its way without let or hindrance up the Waitaki with its series of hydro-electric generation dams which remain masterpieces by any standard..

Utah Williamson Burnett was allowed also at this time to peacefully proceed with the Manapouri hydro electric project, another masterpiece if ever there was one.

It was now though that in the early 1970s the dam of public anger broke and its ostensible cause was the raising of Lake Manapouri in order to derive the greatest value from the immense investment in the project by the now also extinct New Zealand Electricity Department.

This middle class revolt was centred in Wellington and encased in its wrath were perpetrators of any large scale civil engineering project of any description.

The righteous fury of the Manapouri protest fed on itself in a compounding manner. Only Prime Minister Robert Muldoon’s determination and political boondoggling ensured that the Cromwell project went through. This ensured that New Zealand’s proportion of renewable, yes “renewable” energy was in place to act as shock absorber for the various power crises experienced by the rest of the world.

In Wellington recently I noticed with appreciation the engraved plaque from IPENZ on the Thorndon stretch commemorating the Ministry of Works construction of the urban motorway.

But I fear that it was this stretch of the motorway that sowed the whirlwind of active discontent that still plagues, and often freezes, the nation’s large scale/large benefit civil engineering construction projects.

SincerelyCharles LautenbachLondon