Waimairi wants to be on proposed boards

Press, 3 December 1987, Page 42

Waimairi wants to be on proposed boards

Waimairi District Council wants to be represented on the proposed airport company and electricity supply board. This week’s Waimairi District Council meeting resolved that Crs Brian Shackel and John Hanifin should be the council’s representatives on the two reorganised boards. However, there has been no formal invitation for Waimairi to be involved in either of these Christchurch City Council proposals. And in spite of Waimairi nominating the two councillors, there was consensus that both the airport and the electricity supply board should be run on a regional rather than metropolitan level.

The Local Government Commission recently asked the region’s metro-

politan councils — Waimairi, Christchurch City, Riccarton Borough and Heathcote County — to list what they believed to be regional responsibilities.

Waimairi’s list is: the airport, electricity supply, the museum, regional planning, civil defence, environmental and resource management, catchment functions, regional development, transport, the art gallery and administration of the Provincial Chambers on Durham Street.

The Waimairi chairman, Mrs Margaret Murray, told the council that the Mayor of Christchurch, Sir Hamish Hay, had extended a verbal invitation for Waimairi representatives to be on the electricity board.

“No invitation (written) has arrived, but I believe Sir Hamish’s suggestion was a logical and generous gesture. I took the initiative to send forward the names of Crs Shackel and Hanifin in-case the city did not support his idea,” she said. Most councillors agreed that if the airport and electricity supply were not to become regionally administered then Waimairi should have a say on their boards.

“In the case of the airport, there is no doubt it is a South Island, regional and metropolitan facility,” Mrs Murray said.

Councillors were adament that electricity supply should be administered by a single regional body.