County decides to let Twizel die: townspeople react angrily

Press, 31 January 1979, Page 1

County decides to let Twizel die: townspeople react angrily

Long-term residents of Twizel and prospective holiday-home owners in the hydro town might be out of luck after a decision by the Mackenzie County Council.

Twizel will not be maintained by the Mackenzie County after the power

scheme is completed in 1986 and will not be included in the county’s district scheme. The decision has drawn widespread criticism from Twizel residents and the dissent of two Government departments. The council decided, by a vote of seven to three, not to include Twizel in the county’s new district

scheme. This means that the Mackenzie County Council will take no re-

By RODGER MACKEY

sponsibility for the maintenance of several million dollars worth of underground services and roads after the power project is completed.

At present the services are maintained jointly by the Ministry of Works and Development and the Electricity Division of the Ministry of Energy. The decision was made after a report on the future of Twizel, prepared by outside consultants, was presented to the council. Both Twizel’s representative on the council, Serg-

eant G. Cleland, who was one of the dissenters from the council decision, and the chairman of the Twizel Community Council Mr R. N. Grant, are critical of the decision and the report oi which it was based. “We were pretty large!; excluded from the delibe. ations,” said Mr Grant. “The way the whol thing has been preparei

has been a sore point with me,” said Mr Grant, referring to the report on which the county de:ision was based. Mr Grant criticised the onsultants on several ;rounds. They had not ap >roached it objectively, he aid, and the community ouncil had been dissatis led with its contact will he consultants.

Inadequate methods were sed by the consultants /hen they distributed a fuestionnaire to local residents and it was not easy o understand, said Mr Irant.

Whereas those interested <1 the ballot for Tekapo .ections were all sent copies of the questionnaire and a re-ply-paid envelope in which to return it, Twizel residents were asked to answer a questionnaire that appeared in the local paper, aid Mr Grant. “By the time they real-

sed the significance of the questionnaire most of them had thrown their copies of the paper away,” he said.

As a result only J5O persons had replied and the consultants had received an incorrect impression of how many people wished to remain in the town or retain holiday homes there after the power project ended, said Mr Grant. The Community Council had approached the consultants and offered a list of 300 persons who wanted to remain or buy houses in Twizel but the offer had been refused, said Mr Grant. Uneasiness over the delay in deciding Twizel’s future had meant that a number of persons on this list and others who wished to stay had made other arrangements, he said. Both Sergeant Cleland and Mr Grant said that Twizel had a future as a resort and retirement town.

A number of long term hydro-town residents whose last posting before retirement was Twizel wanted to stay there, said Mr Grant. The alternative was to move to a place such as Timaru where few of them knew anyone, he said.

The cost of maintaining the services in Twizel was “one of the big worries of Mackenzie County” when the decision on the future of the town was made, said the chairman of the County Council (Mr B. J. O’Neil).

It was feared that any permanent town would not have enough residents and provide enough rates to pay for any services the Mackenzie County would be obliged to maintain. The council also felt that a permanent town at Twizel would not fit into the

county’s planning concept, said Mr O’Neil.

The Electricity Division of the Ministry of Energy, which paid for the report to the county, and the Ministry of Works and Development which runs the power project are both unhappy about the report’s .onclusions.

“We are trying to preerve the asset we have in Twizel and think it is to the advantage of the nation to use it rather than develop new facilities,” said the project engineer for the Electricity Division (Mr S. 14. Smith).

“Mackenzie County has not really thought out the consequences. What are the alternatives with no Twizel?” said Mr Smith. Although the Ministry of Works and Development had disagreed with the report’s conclusions “there was no question of a headon confrontation,” said the District Commissioner of Works (Mr P. F. Reynolds). Many things could happen before the power scheme was completed in 1986 to change Twizel’s future, said Mr Reynolds.

The question of how many permanent staff were needed to service the hydro scheme had yet to be settled. It was likely that more than normal would be needed because of the canal network associated with the power project. Messrs Reynolds and Smith will present a joint report on the County Council’s decision to the Commissioner of Works in Wellington within the next few weeks.

It was up to the commissioner to decide whether to pass the report on to the Minister of Works (Mr W. L. Young), said Mr Reynolds. The consultant’s report could be released next week depending on the reaction of the Ministry of Energy. A partner in the consulting firm that prepared the report, Mr B. W. Thompson, of Davie, LovellSmith, and Partners, has rejected any suggestion that the report was not objective. “It covers all the relevant factors. None of the criticism has so far been substantiated,” he said.

Mr Thompson denied that a list of Twizel residents who had wished to stay in the town had been rejected when offered to the planners by the Community Council. The planners had asked for the list once the offer was made but none was produced, he said.

While plans for the closing of Twizel proceed, Trans Holdings is continuing discussions with the Lands and Survey Department on a proposed village development near Twizel, at Pukaki.