Rural Paparua to fight reform

Press, 20 April 1989, Page 7

Rural Paparua to fight reform

By

MICHAEL RENTOUL

The residents of Paparua County’s rural districts will mount a lastditch effort to stave off the Local Government Commission’s proposal to bring the districts into the new city. The chairman of Paparua County Council’s rural districts committee, Mr Jim Baker, put the proposal to a meeting of about 50 people called last evening by Templeton residents. The proposal differs from an earlier one by Paparua in that McLeans i Island would come under the new Selwyn District instead of under Christchurch City. Also included in Selwyn would be Prebbleton and Templeton.

While submissions on draft final schemes closed on March 1, Mr Baker said a last-ditch effort would be mounted when the chairman of the Local Government Commission, Mr Brian Elwood, visited Christchurch on Monday. But for many at the meeting it seemed attempts by their elected council representatives to fight the amalgamation of rural Paparua with Christchurch City had come too late.

Mr Baker defended himself from several attacks by residents who claimed they > had not been kept informed of developments. Mr Baker admitted if Paparua had acted sooner its protests might have been more effective, but it had taken Mr Elwood’s advice to sit on the sideline.

Mr Elwood had told them he believed Paparua was ‘‘God’s gift to local bodies," with a good balance of urban and rural population. When the Government changed the rules and it was obvious Paparua would be split up, Mr Elwood was sidelined, Mr Baker said.