Templeton pledges to fight

Press, 23 February 1989, Page 7

Templeton pledges to fight

By

DEBORAH MCPHERSON

Templeton residents last evening pledged to be a “thorn in Christchurch City’s backside” to prevent their area from being sucked into the proposed greater city scheme.

A meeting of about 30 residents prepared to fight the Local Government Commission over its intention to include Prebbleton and Templeton in the proposed supercity scheme, under local government amalgamation.

The meeting was called by the Templeton Residents Association. A submission and a petition which had attracted 650 signatures from residents protesting inclusion in the city would soon be presented to the commission and other heads of local authorities. A vote of no confidence in the Local Government Commission was also carried.

The residents believe they are a rural area and should not be included in the city area. They say their community of interests already lies in .the proposed Selwyn District,

the “phoenix” to rise from the ashes of the present Ellesmere, Malvern, Wairewa, Akaroa, and rural parts of Paparua. The association’s president, Mrs Kathy Cox, suggested residents should register their protest with a show of people “holding hands around the outskirts of the district as a way of saying ‘hands off to Christchurch City Council.” One resident, Mr Mel Challis, suggested the residents could challenge the local government comissioner on the legality of his rulings, because he had not followed the com-

mission’s criteria of interest rules for carving up local governments. The meeting was also addressed by two Paparua County councillors, Cr James Kyle and Cr Jim Baker, the vice-chairman. Both councillors are also representatives on the county’s semi-autonomous Rural Districts Council. It is fighting for Templeton and Prebbleton to be included within the new Selwyn district, despite opposition from Malvern Malvern objected because it feared it would inherit future problems with pollution of underground water supplies

from the district’s shingle pits, and problems with sewerage, Cr Baker said. Cr Kyle said when the commission first proposed amalgamation, Paparua was held up as a "shining example of a good local body system.” “Now Paparua will no longer exist as it has been split down the middle, with the urban area going to the city and the rural area going to Selwyn district.

"People are being steamrolled into something they do not want by a commission that has not taken any notice of our submissions.”