Major Topic: 3 Waters from the Desk of GDC Councillor Terry Sheldrake
Council has been busy recently with several formal meetings and extra zoom calls however a bit slower this week. On Wednesday there is a representation review hearing along with Thursday a Forestry workshop with Lawrence Yule.
The major topic for our community has been the discussion and debate around the governments’ three waters proposal. Our communities’ feedback has been significant and loud. As reported our feed- back to government (like many other councils) is “NO thank you”. The following is a collation of the responses council received from rate payers to what was a short 12 day campaign.
Staff further presented to council significant additional information that they had researched pre this meeting. For me as co-chair of the Wastewater management committee and others whose comments were again not reported in Fridays Gisborne Herald three waters and the management of are the most important discussions and decision that council will make in this 3 year term.
In a brief summary tabled report, Council received 639 public submissions of which 93% didn’t agree with the government’s proposal, 97%said local control of our three waters is important to them, 63% of respondents are connected to Council water services with 81% of respondents having something further to say.
Comments from our community included, loss of voice as a smaller region,
Local control is essential, lack of trust in government, our water services work well as they are, more information needed, and means lower levels of service, local ratepayers have paid for these assets, the proposal is flawed.
If this is to proceed and it is reported that this could in fact be made mandatory by central government, where would our region sit in the priority line up with the likes of Wellington with their water challenges? Where do our rural areas sit in amongst this wider plan? Who will be making these decisions? How will the transfer of assets be managed, especially those that have partnerships such as the Waingake Transformation programme be retained by our council and Iwi partners should this proposal go ahead are just a snippet of the issues.
Our community of 50,243 is geographically spread over a large Tairawhiti District. We are only 1% of the national population, our land area comprises 3% of New Zealand’s national land area hence to deliver the proposed three waters to all within Tairawhiti alone is a massive challenge and I am “not” convinced that the government proposal can benefit us at all.
Council’s formal response to government is full of facts and information regarding Te Tairawhiti along with numerous questions that need to be answered. At this time there are too many questions that need to be answered. Our response strongly encourages central government to undertake proper consultation and engagement with all communities across NZ to ensure it progresses with the support of its constituencies.
It is too hard in this short opinion piece to summarise lest to say we have sent a formal response to government and we now await like all councils for their revert.
Councillors adopted the 2020/21 Annual Report at last Thursdays meeting
After what has been a very challenging year council is in a strong financial position and it is interesting when you revisit staff reports the actual number of projects that have been delivered in one year. A big thankyou to the staff of GDC for such a great year’s end result was conveyed to them by all councillors.
More good news re other major projects underway includes the upgrade of the wastewater treatment plant and the work started on the Kiwa pools project.