To answer Peter Otway (The Weekend Sun, August 16) as to where I got the three metres sea level rise from, it came from articles I read 20 to 30 years ago and actually caused some people to sell up and move to higher ground in the early 1990's.

Niwa was not around when my dad cut steps in the rocks to access his fishing boat which he used almost every day from the Hillsborough waterfront, beginning in the late 1940's. Later he would point out to me the tide heights and where they came to against these steps. Sometimes, predicted heights could be out by 10 centimetres either way. Once a big storm in the 1990's on top of a spring tide brought rocks off the seabed onto a sealed road on a nearby coast.

Recently I took my son to the Hillsborough coast we had left in 2004 and observed a full four metre tide and it was the same level as my dad had pointed out to me as early as 1959 and I was now able to pass on to the next generation a rock solid reminder that there is no rising sea level.

John Fairburn, Katikati