Council to carry the extraordinary councillor vacancy over until elections
Clutha District Councillors agreed to not fill the extraordinary vacancy created by the resignation of Councillor Kevin Barron in December 2024.
As the next triennial election is scheduled for Saturday 11 October 2025, the resignation did not trigger a by-election as it is within 12 months of the next election. Council could chose to either not fill the vacancy or fill the vacancy by the appointment by Council of a person who is qualified to be elected.
If the vacancy was to be filled by appointment, there was a process to go through and it could for example be the next highest polling unsuccessful candidate in the 2022 local body election.
Council acknowledges that elections are in October this year and will be reducing the number of councillors to 9, which was decided as part of Council’s Representation Review.
Council to work with South Otago Athletics to find alternative practice grounds
The athletics club has requested Council review of the Centennial Park Masterplan as athletics is currently excluded from the plan.
Council decided not to provide for athletics at Centennial Park and will work with South Otago Athletics to assist them to find alternative practice grounds in Balclutha.
The area the club wanted for a track had been ear marked for a pump track that the Clutha Parks Trust had indicated was due to be developed soon.
The original masterplan for the Centennial Park Area was approved by Council in May 2019.
This project came out of a publicly consulted on Reserve Management Plan process and was also a Community Plan Project that a committee was established to progress.
When the plan was developed the club had not been in operation for some time.
South Otago Athletics Club (SOAC) has since got up and running again after this process was concluded.
Clutha Boot Market to move to beside Te Pou Ō Mata Au
Council approved an exemption of the New Trading in Public Places Bylaw to allow the Clutha Boot Market to move to set up in the outdoor area beside Te Pou Ō Mata Au.
The Clutha Boot Market is a grassroots initiative setup by community members to host a reoccurring Boot Market to allow for the Clutha Community to buy and sell locally grown and produced products on a regular basis. This market is held weekly on Saturdays from 9am.
The current site for the Clutha Boot Market was 196 Clyde Street, Balclutha PGG Wrightson Ltd carpark.
The market currently hosts between 12 and 20 regularly stall holders.
With an increasing number of stall holders and visitors, the site at 196 Clyde Street was no longer fit for purpose to easily accommodate the stall holders and visitors of the market.
Council to review its vehicles on beaches safe zones
Council will conduct a review of its safe zones on the Vehicles on Beaches Bylaw 2023 – Schedule 1 due to the increasing concerns around safety and the impact on wildlife at the Clutha District’s beaches.
Because the review would require consultation with the public Council decided to defer it until after the elections in October.
The Vehicles on Beaches Bylaw was approved in 2023 after an extensive decision-making process.
As part of that process, several beaches were proposed to be included in Schedule 1: Safe Zones but none were included in the final bylaw approval.
In Safe Zones all vehicles are prohibited – other than emergency vehicles, specific situations (launching/retrieving a boat or where a property is only accessible via the beach), and those granted exemptions by the Chief Executive.
Since the Bylaw was adopted, there had been submitters to the Long-Term Plan 2024/34 and other representations where members of the public highlighted concerns from vehicles on beaches with requests for Council to review the bylaw.
Council also received several emails and a letter from Department of Conservation requesting Council to look into implementing stronger measures for vehicles on beaches.
Monitoring of beach environments is undertaken by Council’s rangers, but their capacity is limited. From November 2024 to January 2025, there were 14 vehicles on beaches issues identified as part of this monitoring.
Council also has other tools which may be used including public education, signage, monitoring and reporting and collaboration with other agencies and groups such as iwi, DOC, conservation groups, the NZ Police and community groups.
Clutha District Council to collaborate on water services
Clutha District Council will work together to investigate options for ensuring the efficient and sustainable delivery of water services to their communities with southern district councils.
Gore District Council and Clutha District Council have agreed to signing an agreement to formalise their relationship at their respective Council meetings held this week.
Central Otago District Council and Waitaki District Council will meet in the next few weeks to also consider signing the agreement.
The agreement represents a commitment by the councils to work together to examine options for the delivery of water services in the future that meet their communities' expectations and the Government’s new regulatory requirements as set out in Local Water Done Well (LWDW).
LWDW is designed to address New Zealand’s long-standing water infrastructure challenges while maintaining local decision-making flexibility. By September this year, all councils must have identified the best options for delivering water services in the future, talked to their communities about them, and produced a Water Services Delivery Plan.
The plans will show how councils intend to deliver water services that meet regulatory requirements, support growth and urban development, and are financially sustainable.
Clutha District Mayor Bryan Cadogan said councils were making the best of a very challenging situation.
The agreement sets out the process to consider the design of a joint council-controlled organisation (CCO) and how it compares to other practicable options, such as leaving water services in-house or setting up a standalone Council CCO.
A complete analysis of three options, including the impact on each council’s rates, debt and levels of service, would be presented for community feedback at the end of April.
In a report published last year Morrison Low found that water services delivery in Otago and Southland would become unaffordable without fundamental change.
The report estimated that the water bill for 76% of residential users in the two regions would double within 10 years. Additionally, workforce shortages and infrastructure demands would require regional coordination to avoid inefficiency and competition.
Mt Cooee’s capacity critically close to being full
Despite the ongoing progression of the new consent application, Council’s Mt Cooee landfill area is critically close to capacity.
Previously Council thought there was enough time to have the consent and undertake construction.
However, Council now understands it will not be completed in sufficient time to design and construct a new landfill cell before the existing and any extra capacity obtained is completely exhausted.
Council must take immediate action to ensure continuity of waste management services.
Council will accelerate the planned Mount Cooee upgrades, including the the concrete pad component of the transfer station. This modification is part of the concept design to prevent users from accessing the landfill face and will be a feature of Mt Cooee when and if consent is received.
It is expected to be less costly than transferring waste elsewhere without completing the necessary upgrades.
The consent for Mt Cooee landfill, expired in September 2023. A new consent application, including the required closure plan was submitted to Otago Regional Council (ORC) to enable continued operation, until the consent has been processed.
An updated capacity report showed Council that there was less space than initially forecast.
Council had also asked our Contractors WasteCo to redesign the landfill closure plan to obtain extra space and while it’s hoped to extend the capacity to at least early 2026, this is not assured.
The Council has budgeted for the future extension of the landfill by designing a new landfill area adjacent to the current landfill, as well as the construction of a transfer station in fiscal year 2025/26.
However, the estimated build time for such facilities is 4-6 months, and there will be a high risk that there is insufficient time to build and transition to these new facilities before the current landfill area reaches its operational limits.
The new consent application is currently under review by ORC but the overall feedback is that it’s unlikely to receive consent until the latter part of 2025.
Once the landfill is full, the only cost-effective solution is to function Mt Cooee as a transfer station, bulk the waste and transfer it to a 3rd party landfill such as Winton or Dunedin.
Currently, the gate fees at the Mt Cooee landfill are $272 per tonne, established as part of the Council's fees and charges. This fee covers the annual operating costs, including:
• Contractor costs
• Landfill taxes
• Environmental monitoring and site surveys
• Emissions trading
• Council back-office expenses
When Mt Cooee reaches capacity, and waste is temporarily transferred, there will be reductions in landfill taxes, environmental monitoring, emissions trading, and operator costs. However, new costs associated with waste transfer will include construction, operations, external landfill gate fees, and transport to and from Mt Cooee.
Council estimates that the net transfer rate could range from $360 to $460 per tonne, depending on the transportation method available to the contractor and the gate fees at external landfills.
Central Government’s changes to waste requirements trigger a review
Council will review its Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (WWMP) following an announcement by Central Government late last year to provide councils with more autonomy to determine the timing and scope of their kerbside recycling services roll-out.
As stipulated in the current WMMP, Council was due to roll-out glass and organics kerbside collections in 2027.
Depending on community preference, Council can now leverage these changes to defer or opt out of launching new kerbside recycling services.
The review which includes public consultation will give Council the option to initiate the process to review and amend its plan to reflect the community's preferred level of service considering the cost implications and infrastructure constraints prevailing in.
CCTV server to be replaced
Council will fund the replacement of the main Clutha CCTV server that has been identified as approaching imminent failure.
A budget of $15,000+GST has been set aside for the renewal and will be funded from the remaining Investment surplus.
Council initially installed a CCTV system in Balclutha as part of the Streetscape Project.
This was primarily to reduce vandalism on Council provided infrastructure. However, due to several requests from Police and more recently community groups, there are CCTV cameras in a number of townships across the district.
These cameras all feed back into the Balclutha Police Station into a central server.
The CCTV camera network is regularly used by Police to identify perpetrators and to protect public and private infrastructure.
The existing server is approximately 8 years old. Our service provider advised that a couple of the hard drives had failed already but they were nursing it along.
The recent addition of extra cameras and the upcoming Milton Streetscape project will require more storage on the server and this renewal will include this extra capacity.
Election update
Councillors decided to go with candidate names being listed alphabetically in the voting documents for the 2025 triennial local government elections.
The election will occur on Saturday 11 October and under regulation 21 of the Local Electoral Regulations 2001, Council choose alphabetical in favour of the other two options pseudo-random (names drawn out of a hat in random with all voting documents printed in this order) or random order (names randomly drawn by computer with each voting document different).
The following key functions and dates will apply:
• Nominations open/roll open Friday 4 July 2025
• Nominations close/roll closes noon Friday 1 August 2025
• Delivery of voting mailers Tuesday 9 to Monday 22 September 2025
• Close of voting Noon Saturday 11 October 2025
Contracts Awarded
Council awarded Contract 888 – Tank Farm Reservoir Tank Supply to WaterForce for $512,474.38 excl. GST.
Seven tenders were received from 6 tenderers, ranging from $512,474 to $887,135 excl.GST.
WaterForce was awarded the contract based on their alternative design with a 500mm lid.