Upper Hutt barely increases water renewals investment, others quadruple budget
10 Mar, 2021 04:00 PM
5 minutes to read
A sinkhole appeared on Jervois Quay in Wellington City earlier this month. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Wellington issues reporter, NZ Heraldgeorgina.campbell@nzme.co.nz
Some councils in the Wellington region are quadrupling their spend on water infrastructure renewals, but Upper Hutt City Council is increasing its budget by just 15 per cent.
Fronting the water woes crisis with a significant uplift in spending is a priority for most draft Long Term Plans (LTP) in Wellington. These are councils 10-year budgets.
A 2021/31 Long Term Planning Update, presented in a recent Wellington Water Committee meeting, has revealed just how much more councils are proposing to spend on renewal investments.
“Liveable” assets such as community facilities have not been included in the strategy’s budget, but it did mention significant community projects would likely include renewal of the library ($12m), the Theatre Royal and heritage centre ($23m) and the CBay Aquatic Centre ($30m). However, Dixon said the infrastructure strategy, the financial strategy, and the Long Term Plan (LTP) were based on completing 90 per cent of its budgeted projects within the set timeframe of the next 10 years. Council chief executive Bede Carran noted the goal was “ambitious” as on any given project there could be “unforeseen” delays. “We think it s more transparent and honest to say that 90 per cent would be complete. We don t know which ones might not get there. It s not a particular project, it could be a number of reasons why we can t deliver 100 per cent,” Carran said.
In option 2 there are not the same opportunities to transform public transport through actions such as MyWay on-demand buses in Timaru, the document says. The consultation document then asks: Should investment continue to be made in this on-demand public transport option for Timaru after the trial period has completed? The service will require a total of $1.18m in year one of the Long Term Plan with continued investment in future years and would be funded through a targeted rate for the Timaru community and from Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency grants. It would add about $14 (including GST) per $100,000 of property value for Timaru District ratepayers in Year 1.
A proposal to establish a single holding company for Nelson Airport and Port Nelson could deliver annual estimated operational synergies of $592,000 to $932,000.
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