Waimairi intends to continue its battle

Press, 20 February 1986, Page 5

Waimairi intends to continue its battle

The Waimairi District Council will not give up its battle for a two-city metropolitan Christchurch in spite of the one-city proposal put before it last evening.

The council would try to reach a compromise with other councils for a

two-city metropolitan Christchurch before the May deadline, said the District Chairman, Mrs Margaret Murray. The council would do everything it could to come to some agreement with the Riccarton Borough Council to pre-

vent the implementation of the “alarming programme presented tonight,” she said. Although the councils in metropolitan Christchurch had found it impossible to reach agreement in recent months, Mrs Murray said that as this was the last opportunity some compromise might be possible. The Local Government Commission’s chairman, Mr Brian Elwood, had not come up with anything in his one-city proposal that would convince Waimairi ratepayers that they would be any better off, she said.

The proposal would create a monolithic structure, manned by too few councillors coping with too great a workload and too distant from the people it represented. Later the workload would only increase with the proposed addition of ad hoc bodies and ward committees.

An agenda would be daunting for any councillor to attempt to cope with, Mrs Murray said. As the only council in the area, the ratepayers would have no comparison by which to judge the level of service and the running costs of such a structure. Months of hard work and detailed study by the Waimairi District Council had been reduced to “an exercise in futility” by the announcement, Mrs Murray said. “No-one seems to have listened to us,” she said. The commission seemed to have taken “the same simplistic approach that the Christchurch City Council had adopted.” Every citizen of metropolitan Christchurch should be concerned about the proposed reforms because everyone would be affected, Mrs Murray said. The , Mayor of Christ-

church, Sir Hamish Hay, believes the commission’s decision is “far-sighted and in the best interests of Christchurch.” Councils had to get round the table as soon as possible to discuss details, he said. "Mr Elwood has made the direction and the philosophy quite clear. It is now up to us,” Sir Hamish said. The proposal was not identical to the City Council’s submission. “We recommended. urban Paparua be included in the new city. The commission obviously sees that as a second stage,” Sir Hamish said. He accepted that Paparua’s future depended much on the restructuring of the whole of the Canterbury region, especially the rural area. Sir Hamish said the timetable outlined by Mr Elwood was feasible although it would require a

lot of work in a short time from councils. “Now is a busy time of year as each council sets its rates,” he said. The City Council would approach other councils today to set up meetings, Sir Hamish said. He suggested the new City Council be called Christchurch Metropolitan Council. “People must realise it is a brand new organisation. It is not the City Council enlarged.” He said he supported more citizen participation through committee and delegation of authority. He did not support fulltime, paid councillors. “The workload is heavy but delegation should improve that.” The chairman of the Heathcote County Council, Cr Oscar Alpers is disappointed that no heed appears to have been taken of the submissions and detailed professional studies presented by councils. The commission appeared to have had its mind set on one city from the start and had not changed that view, he said. Christchurch deserved a more thorough consideration than it obviously got. The commission which received submissions from throughout New Zealand would barely have had time to read the submissions before coming forward with a plan, Mr Alpers said. Under one city there would be no security of representation on the council because the workload on the 24 councillors would be too great. The Mayor of Riccarton, Mr Richard Harrington, cannot see Riccarton residents benefiting from a one city. It was a costly exercise and would pave the way for political party takeovers in local government, he said.

The councils would have to work closely to find a solution that they would present to the com-

missioner before the deadline. The proposal did not surprise Mr Harrington. “It was a predictable plan.” The commission had made its mind up at the beginning and not changed it, he said. The Paparua County Council is pleased to have been left out of the reshuffle at least in the meantime. The County Chairman, Cr Jack Pethig, does not envisage any changes for at least three years. He is confident that whatever happens will be in the interests of the ratepayers. Although there have been suggestions that the county be split and its urban sector and rural sectors aligned with similar territories, Cr Pethig believes that the county may in future be amalgamated, in its entirety, with other rural counties such as Ellesmere and Malvern.

- Cr Pethig said he hoped that Paparua would be= kept apart from the reorganisation of metropolitan Christchurch and kept as was outlined in the council’s submission to the Local Government Commission last year.