Our Council: E-Newsletter

Our Place Balclutha: We're delighted to have started the process to turn the community plan for Balclutha into a reality! The "Our Place Balclutha" community plan will help determine the projects and priorities for the community. The ideas centre on what Council can do with our key facilities and how we can work with the community to make things happen. Check out the Our Place Balclutha page on our website for the latest information on the various projects, including project scopes and next steps.

Council has made it very clear that projects can generally proceed where financially the project is rates neutral, but if a project was seeking additional Council funding, it would go through a due process for consultation. Council has also built into each project, a requirement to consider "easy wins" as a priority.

After direction from the community, at today's Council meeting (10 August), councillors backed the following priority projects:

• Endorsing a community-led project to rejuvenate Balclutha's War Memorial Hall and investigate the creation of a community hub (including looking at relocating the Cenotaph) • Supporting community efforts to improve walking and cycling linkages • Advocating to improve the safety and appearance of the Balclutha Bridge, including investigating lighting • Working with

the community to revitalise certain parks and reserves to turn them into 'destinations' • Enhancing Balclutha's Centennial Pool and its surrounds • Investigating more public toilets in the CBD.

Our Place Milton: A huge thank you to all those that gave us feedback on the Our Place Milton Community Plan! Consultation has now finished and we were delighted with the quality and amount of feedback and the strong interest from the Milton community. We received more than 600 pieces of feedback. Staff are now busy collating all the feedback so priority projects and plans can be identified for Milton and shared with the community. We'll keep you updated about our progress. The consultation material is still available on our website if you're interested.

Under the Local Electoral Act 2001, Council is required to start preparing for the local body elections to be held in 2019. At the Council meeting on 10 August, elected members decided to retain the First Past the Posting voting system for the next local body elections. A review of current representation arrangements will be undertaken later this year and early next year, this includes looking at issues such as Maori representation, councillor numbers, wards and community boards.

At the same meeting, Council approved a Policy on Procurement following an independent review of our procurement processes. This purpose of this policy is to make sure that all goods, services and works purchased (procured) by Council "meet the current and future needs of communities for good-quality local infrastructure, local public services, and performance of regulatory functions in a way that is most cost-effective for households and businesses". The next step is to create a manual and train staff so this policy can be applied robustly.

Council also adopted a 'Strategic Case' that is used when we apply for funding from the New Zealand Transport Agency to help manage our district's roads under the '2018/21 Land Transport Programme'. There are three main focus areas: managing local roads more efficiently where there is intense use by heavy vehicles, creating safer rural roads and looking at state highways and busy roads that are causing access issues in the middle of towns.

In case you hadn't heard, the work at the Plantation Heights subdivision in north Balclutha has finished and sections (with titles) are now available for purchase!Potential purchasers can buy the sections directly through the Council. For more information on available sections, please see our website. So far the sales process has been completed for nine sections, while another four are currently under offer. There are 66 sections in total ranging from small sized blocks to larger lifestyle blocks. All have services to their boundaries, including ultra-fast broadband. Roads, footpaths, cycle and walkways are also part of the development. The subdivision is open during daylight hours for people to have a look around.

Contract 764 - Oxidation Pond Desludging 2017-2020: awarded to CW Glasgow Limited for $1,143,970 (excl. GST). Their tender price was less than 40% of estimate.

Contract 767 - Milton Water Treatment Plant Pre-Treatment Civil Works: awarded to Wilfox Ltd trading as Roxburgh Excavation for $209,170.

We welcomed 10 new citizens at this latest citizenship ceremony, people of Dutch, Swiss, Australian, British, Samoan and Filipino nationality. We extend a warm welcome to Simon Broekhuizen, Regula Fischli, Peter Knapton, Susan and Christopher Parker, Fania and Athena Taavili, Imelda Yeung, Nico Vos and Mirjam Spronk, all are pictured below with Mayor Bryan Cadogan, and their gifted Kowhai trees.