From the Mayor

By the time the Star goes to print the Council will have signed off its Long Term Plan for 2012 – 2022.  Given the changes proposed to local government this is probably the last LTP to be prepared by South Wairarapa District Council in its current form. 

It would be easy to take a siege mentality and do nothing but we believe that it should be very much business as usual. Letting our assets run down because times are tough is false economy.  

Funnily enough, it is in these tough times that Council is able to get work done at the most competitive prices.  For instance back in boom times when the world economy was flying, our roading costs were rising at between 16 and 18 per cent per year as New Zealand competed against China for bitumen. We are not under that pressure now. 

We are however required to upgrade our three sewerage plants and deferring the work is not an option.  Putting urban effluent in the river is no longer acceptable.  This is the main driver for any proposed urban rate rises and when this is removed from the equation the increases are minimal. 

It was suggested  through the LTP process that to save costs we just paint the Martinborough public toilets rather than replace them  as we had planned.  The old toilets are hard to clean, neither water nor energy efficient and because of the type of fittings, regularly prone to vandalism.
 
We budget for 10-12 toilet seats per year that are either stolen or wrecked.  New fittings reduce the effects of vandalism hugely so do we bite the bullet and get new loos or keep forking out to fix the old ones? 
These are the things that we weigh up before we decide to remove items from the LTP.  It’s not as cut and dried as some people think.

Adrienne Staples