Here’s three examples of why spending restraint is necessary:
South Taranaki District Council’s new cultural centre (Te Ramanui O Ruaputahanga) has blown out from a starting point of $8 million to $20.1 million.
Wellington City Council has spent $563,000 to install a single bike rack opposite the council’s office on the Terrace. The bike rack has space for just 24 bikes.
That’s more than $23,000 per bike and comes only weeks after an $84,000 bike rack was reported on by the Post.
And eight years after the earthquake Kaikōura District Council hasn’t bought the land or got resource consent to rebuild the Waiau Toa/Clarence River Glen Alton bridge and risks losing the NZTA 95% subsidy which expires in 10 months.
Wellington City Council has spent $563,000 to install a single bike rack opposite the council’s office on the Terrace. The bike rack has space for just 24 bikes.
That’s more than $23,000 per bike and comes only weeks after an $84,000 bike rack was reported on by the Post.
And eight years after the earthquake Kaikōura District Council hasn’t bought the land or got resource consent to rebuild the Waiau Toa/Clarence River Glen Alton bridge and risks losing the NZTA 95% subsidy which expires in 10 months.
. . . Commenting on this, Taxpayers’ Union Communications Officer, Alex Emes, said:
“The recent construction news – or lack thereof – regarding the Waiau Toa/Clarence River Glen Alton bridge is a prime example of how councils are failing Kiwis. Kaikōura’s council fumbling of a $13.5 million grant from NZTA and failing to sort the proper resource consents eight years into the project is an utter embarrassment.
“Is it any wonder New Zealand is facing an infrastructure crisis when even Councils themselves can’t wade through planning red tape without nearly a decade of back-and-forth talking shops? Clearly wholesale RMA reform is long overdue.
“Kaikōura District Council is being offered taxpayers’ money hand over foot for this project, and they still can’t get it right. When Luxon told councils that Kiwis expect them to focus on getting the basics right, this is exactly the sort of fiasco he was rightly calling out.”
The councillors and media who pushed back against the call for careful spending aren’t listening to their ratepayers who agreed with the PM and these examples prove him right.
Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
2 comments:
Lets get real about a bridge . Stuff the consent process .There are tens of thousands of bridges in the world and each does not have to be unique . Just get a standard second hand set of bridge plans of a completed bridge and adapt for size. Concrete and steel are the main requirements , A construction team , diggers and compactors and engineering supervision . Voila a perfectly appropriate public bridge amenity, that can have a retrospective consent prepared so Kaikoura Council are happy.
These Councils are inept and need sacking.
As for our central government politicians, they deserve our approbrium too for allowing this Resource Consent nonsense to have grown to such a hurdle. Replacing an existing, necessary piece of infrastructure should be all-but automatic and instant. How utterly absurd the obtaining of such is now elevated to such a celebrated milestone in almost every instance. It's no wonder our productivity is in the doldrums and the cost to do anything is so expensive.
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