3 December, 2015

Community should not pay the price of council inefficiency, south Christchurch residents say.

The Representation Review for the city proposes three more councillors, with all community boards reduced and two merged into one. But shifting resource away from community recovery and resilience, to the governance top-end, is wrong post-earthquake, Barrington Issues Group members believe.

“The Akaroa-Waiwera board should stay and the lone Banks Peninsula councillor can go,” group spokesman Rik Tindall says. “Council have not met the review's purpose by using it to multiply council seats and fill their committees at cost to local communities.”

The Local Government Commission has asked Christchurch City Council to remedy over-representation, by a factor of 4:1, for their Banks Peninsula ward. But Council is seeking continued exemption on the basis that Peninsula communities are isolated.

“That underlines the necessity of keeping both Peninsula community boards and increasing their councillor representation directly,” says Tindall.

The Barrington group has started a petition to retain the Akaroa-Waiwera board and share a councillor by joining that area with the new Halswell ward. The Lyttelton-Mount Herbert board could share its councillor by joining the new Heathcote ward, the petition proposes.

“Two councillors serving Banks Peninsula must be better than one, especially with the two community boards retained,” Tindall explains. “This would be consistent with looking after all Christchurch communities equally, which most people very rightly expect.”

The Council proposal would create a new Central ward taking pieces from old and compact inner city suburbs - Addington, Sydenham, Waltham, Linwood, Richmond and St Albans would all be broken up. The Barrington group finds this unacceptable, for so many residents to be denied community recognition that Council proposes as Banks Peninsula privilege.

“Neither the Central nor the Banks Peninsula wards are helpful to community identity or local democracy; neither are justifiable or needed,” Tindall points out.

The Barrington petition proposes 14 wards and councillors, against the Council's bid for 16, and eight community boards instead of seven.

“Division of Christchurch into 16 parts is too extreme and breaks many communities of interest unfairly, so communities are strongly opposing it,” Tindall says.

Council information is at http://www.ccc.govt.nz/repreview and submissions are open until 4pm on Monday 21 December. The Barrington petition can be found on the group's facebook page www.facebook.com/BarringtonIssues/ or here: http://bit.ly/1Twu4hd

ENDS

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