January date for Canterbury scheme

Press, 20 December 1988, Page 18

January date for Canterbury scheme

By

KAY FORRESTER

Canterbury will not receive its final local government reform scheme until mid-January but will get a pointer on its southern boundary with the release o the Otago scheme this week.

Although the Local Government Commission will have made its decision on the final scheme for Canterbury by the end of this week, the time needed for printing the scheme will delay its delivery to councils until next month. The commission’s chairman, Mr Brian Elwood, said yesterday it would be mid-January before the Canterbury scheme was available.

The Otago scheme, however, should be with

councils this week and it may hold some surprises for Cantabrians as well as those from Otago. “The southern boundary of Canterbury will be revealed in the Otago proposal because it is also the northern boundary for Otago,” Mr Elwood said. He would not say if the regional boundary had been changed but said there would be some surprises for people from both regions. The commission would

have all its decisions made by the end of this week. although some schemes would not be out until next month, he said.

The biggest difficulty the commission had had with boundaries was aligning them with properties and mesh blocks used for electoral purposes. “We had some difficulty with exact identification of boundaries,” Mr Elwood said.

The next logistics problem for the commission is scheduling meetings with more than 500 authorities on the final schemes before April 1“We must have that completed by April for the new structures to be put in place in time,” Mr Elwood said. The commission was working under pressure, he said.

“It’s a massive undertaking. No-one has done it before.”