Hutt braces itself for amalgamation announcement

Hutt City is bracing itself on the eve of an announcement by the Local Government Commission on the reorganisation of local government for the region.

The announcement is widely expected to be that of a single supercity entity across nine regional councils.

Hutt Mayor Ray Wallace says, “We’re hoping for the best, which would be no change to current boundaries, but preparing ourselves for an announcement proposing one large, monster of a supercity.”

“We’ve been working to bring together and present a range of evidence on whether a ‘super city’ is a good option. This is not about resistance to change and progress, this is about smart change and smart progress.

“We’ve done economic modelling and it shows no evidence of economy of scale and high costs in amalgamating, and we’ve been learning from other amalgamations in New Zealand and internationally.

“We’ve identified where there are greater efficiencies to be had by joining services across councils and we’re working regionally to implement those; such as joining up our water services and the establishment of the Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency, without a loss of local representation.

“We had majority support from New Zealand councils to our remit to Local Government New Zealand on this issue, and we’ve done surveys to find out what our residents want; these show that 75% of residents in the Wellington region wantcouncil boundaries to remain unchanged.”

The reasons the 75% surveyed didn’t support amalgamation included satisfaction with the current council system, the different demographics and needs of the areas and the loss of local representation and decision making.

Mr Wallace says, “The Local Government Commission has had a pre-determined position in favour of supercities and seems intent on rolling out them out across the country. We just hope we are wrong and the LGC will reflect the communities’ wishes in tomorrow’s proposal. There’s been limited response or indication from the LGC on what evidence and processes it is basing the proposal on. So tomorrow’sannouncement will show if they’ve listened to the people or not.”

ENDS

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