NEWS RELEASE 25 November 2010

Have a say on how we are governed - Mayor

Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown is encouraging members of the public to comment on the shape of local government in the Wellington region.

Mayor Wade-Brown spoke after the publication of a PricewaterhouseCoopers review of how the region is currently governed and any potential for improvements.

The review, commissioned by the regional Mayoral Forum, can be seen on the Wellington City Council website at www.wellington.govt.nz from tomorrow (Friday 26 Nov).

The Council is inviting public comments through to February next year, after which they will be considered by Councillors ahead of the next discussion of the review process by the Mayoral Forum in March.

Mayor Wade-Brown said: "The review will be a useful guide as Mayors, Councils and communities debate these issues. I encourage everyone to have a look at it and share their views with the Council.

"It identifies six potential options which range from keeping things as they are, all the way up to full-scale amalgamation, but these are not necessarily the only options. At this stage I'm neither ruling out keeping the existing political boundaries nor the possibility of change.

"The next step is to get input from the public. There will be further opportunities for comment but I want to know what the community is thinking before Councillors, then the Mayoral Forum, discuss possible next steps in formal consultation in March 2011.

"There are already many areas of cooperation between Councils and this must be taken into account."

The Mayoral Forum commissioned the report to explore whether the Wellington region had the right local government structures and processes for the coming decades, partly prompted by the changes in Auckland.

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