City takes initiative in merger plan

Press, 10 February 1989, Page 2

City takes initiative in merger plan

By

KAY FORRESTER

The Christchurch City Council has taken the initiative in local government co-operation in the city, calling a meeting for next Wednesday of merging councils. The council has indicated its willingness to consider changes to ward boundaries, pairings of wards for ward committees, and service centre locations — all matters about which other councils have expressed concern. The council has not changed its stand on the transitional committee for the new Christchurch City Council, which it believes should not meet before the legal status of the

committee is set in the enactment of the Local Government Admendment Bill (No. 4) at present before the House. Instead it sees Wednesday’s meeting as a chance for councillors from the merging councils to discuss aspects of the draft final scheme before submissions on it close on March 1. Waimairi District’s chairman, Mrs Margaret Murray, has been calling for the first meeting of the transitional committee “to get things started.” An informal meeting of Waimairi, Riccarton Borough, Mount Herbert County, Lyttelton Borough, Heathcote County and Paparua County on Wednesday

backed that call. The Mayor of Riccarton, Mr Dick Harrington, who chaired the meeting, said the councils accepted they could not stop the Local Government Commission’s scheme for the city. But the councils would fight for changes to it to make it “at least partially acceptable and workable.” More sensible ward boundaries and pairings for ward committees and location of service centres were needed. The Mayor of Christchurch, Sir Hamish Hay, who yesterday invited other councils to the February 15 meeting, said he did not believe the transitional committee was the mechanism for change.