Ashburton Bus Debate Goes Round-and-Round

Saturday, 17 May 2025, 7:54 pm
Article: Jonathan Leask - Local Democracy Reporter

How public transport could be introduced to Ashburton, and how much it will cost, needs to be properly discussed with Environment Canterbury, deputy mayor Liz McMillan says.

McMillan believes there is an appetite for public transport in the district.

Environment Canterbury is responsible for delivering public transport in the region, but the council has a role “advocating for our community”.

The public transport conversation was nearly shelved at a council meeting on May 7.

The recommendation was to “not contribute funding for a public transport trial in Ashburton at this time”.

Instead, the discussion led to a 6-4 vote to pursue discussions with ECan on public transport.

Councillor Richard Wilson said public transport was ECan's mandate - "not our mandate”.

“All we are doing is going down a route of making our ratepayers pay for something that the majority of them didn’t want from the survey.”

Councillor Carolyn Cameron said the council’s 2024 public transport research report showed a third of the 400 respondents would use public transport, and while two-thirds wouldn’t, “we could do that same analogy for a lot of facilities in the town”.

“We’re advocating for the review of public transportation in this district just to see if it is required,” Cameron said.

With an ageing population and the ability for people to maintain their independence by using public transportation, it was worth investigating, she said.

Councillor Phill Hooper felt “a good Uber operation and e-scooters around town” would solve the problem, but was open to discussions with ECan “without any commitment of money”.

Chief executive Hamish Riach said the conversation between the council and ECan will provide a better understanding of how any public transport trial might work.

“That piece of work seems to make sense. It’s not requiring anything from this council other than time,” Riach said.

“Where it leads isn’t certain until the conversation is held.”

He pointed out ECan has previously made it clear “they have no intention of doing a trial based on their perception the need doesn’t justify the cost”.

The day before the council meeting, McMillan had presented the council submission on ECan’s annual plan hearing, which included a request to investigate a public transport trial in Ashburton.

Cr Ian Mackenzie believed the district council’s research had found the service would be too expensive "so there is no appetite for that”, but the district council’s submission suggested a belief there is an appetite regardless of the cost.

Cr Peter Scott suggested it would require a hybrid model, somewhere between the MyWay system in Timaru - that is “hugely expensive and they were lucky to get in place” - and the big bus route system.

ECan chairperson Craig Pauling said other public transport trials in the region were funded by a targeted rate on the community involved.

Since the meeting, Pauling told Local Democracy Reporting that there is no public transport funding included for Ashburton in the 2024-27 National or Regional Land Transport Programme.

Without that, any new subsidised public transport service in Ashburton would need to be financially supported 100% through a public transport targeted rate.

“In addition, the revenue from fares would need to meet agreed private revenue targets to be viable."

ECan is considering the development of a framework for new service requests outside the agreed investment programme in its Annual Plan 2025/26, and public transport in Ashburton would be considered as part of the development of this new framework, Pauling said.

Rate rise explanation requested

ECan has been asked to clarify how Ashburton ratepayers are set to be hit my ore than the average 9.9% rate rise in 2025/26.

The Ashburton District Council’s submission noted that it is actually 10.3% for rural properties in the district and 17.6% for urban properties.

Deputy Mayor Liz McMillan said it was “unexpected, given the focus of the plan on public transport, which Ashburton does not have in the extent of other districts”.

“We believe the increase can’t be explained by the increase in total mobility rate or the general rate, and we request some clarification on this.”

ECan chairperson Craig Pauling said a formal reply would be made “in due course, as part of our formal Annual Plan process”.

He noted that McMillan had cited the two sample properties in the draft annual plan, which “do not reflect the variability across the entire Ashburton District Council rating base”.

The recent revaluation in the district will also have had an impact, with urban property capital values increased at a higher rate than rural properties, he said.

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