Our Council: e-newsletter

At its meeting on 5 April, Clutha District councillors formally adopted the Long Term Plan 2018-28 consultation document as well as all the supporting material, meaning that consultation with the community can begin as scheduled on 11 April. So, for all of you that pay rates or use council services, keep an eye out for the consultation information. We’ve identified a few key issues we really want to hear from you about. These are rating changes for community facilities, ramping up services at Mt Cooee landfill, seal extensions on urban gravel roads and Milton’s main street. We’d also love to hear from you about other issues like funding towards the Clutha Gold cycle trail, the Milton-Waihola pipeline, and more! The Long Term Plan sets the district’s direction for the next decade and basically covers everything Council does and how it is paid for. The aim is to always find the right balance between investing in the future and providing services to the level expected by you, while keeping rates fair and affordable. Consultation runs for a month and your feedback is key! So, keep an eye out for consultation material in your letterbox and online.

The Our Place Balclutha and Our Place Milton final community plan documents were officially adopted by councillors at the meeting and will be available on our website shortly. These documents summarise the projects and aims of the community plans and are a useful reference for people wanting to know more. Work on various community projects is already underway in Balclutha and Milton. Councillors also agreed to start community consultation for the Our Place Waihola community plan to gather people's feedback on the current proposals for the town. Consultation will run in conjunction with the Long Term Plan from 11 April to 11 May. Information will be distributed throughout the community and on Council's website shortly. 

Mayor Bryan Cadogan will be carrying out his annual "soapbox sessions" in conjunction with the Long Term Plan. He'll canvas the district giving people a chance to pop along, have a chat and tell him what they think about the issues our district is facing. The dates and locations can be seen below.

Council adopted the 2018 Waste Management and Minimisation Plan. This sets out how waste should be managed and minimised within our district, so we can all live more sustainably. Once published, the plan will be publicly available on Council's website. One of the changes with this plan is more of a focus on minimising waste and the education that goes with that. Remember to keep an eye out for our Long Term Plan consultation from 11 April, where Mt Cooee and a resource recovery set up is one of our key issues.

Councillors also agreed to move some capital projects out of the Annual Plan work programme, and instead consider them as Long Term Plan 2018-22  projects instead. The projects relate to work at water treatment plants, reservoirs and on pipelines. Since the Annual Plan was adopted in June last year, new information has come to hand prompting staff to put forward these amendments.

Council adopted a range of updates to its Regulatory Bylaw, Water and Sanitary Services Bylaw - Part 1 Water Supply and the Roading Bylaw to reflect community and legislative changes that have occurred in recent years. The amendments generally comprise of minor changes to layout and wording and the removal of unnecessary material. These will now be publicly notified. This still leaves an opportunity for more significant changes to these bylaws, and others, in the 2018/19 Work Programme that will include public consultation.

Council voted against signing the Otago Museum Heads of Agreement for 2018. Council will still make a  financial contribution to the Museum, which is consistent with the funding amount outlined in the governing legislation. In 2017, Council noted there were some historical inequities about the amount contributed by Clutha District Council compared with other councils and as a consequence councillors voted to fund only the amount required under the legislation. This brought the amount Council funded down from $181,570 to $121,000 approx. At the time, Council stressed this was not a lack of support for the Museum, but rather a determination to move towards a fairer way of spreading the funding costs throughout the Otago region.

Contracts have been awarded for the following projects:

Contract 771 - Bridge Repairs 2017/18 was awarded to Andrew Haulage for the sum of $1.5M.

Contract 777 - Rural Water Schemes Water Reticulation Upgrades 2018 was awarded to Andrew Haulage for the sum of $2.4M.

Contract 780 - Moa Flat and Tuapeka West Water Reticulation Upgrades 2017 was awarded to Roxburgh Excavation Ltd for the sum of $820,000.