Central Hawke’s Bay Council adds ‘at large’ district-wide option for voters

CHB District Council is proposing to expand representation beyond “rural or urban.”

Central Hawke’s Bay District Council is proposing to expand representation beyond “rural or urban”, with changes introduced in the Initial Representation Review, now open for public consultation.

“A key part of Central Hawke’s Bay Council’s role is to make good decisions on behalf of the community and that’s why it’s important to have the right representation mix,” says Central Hawke’s Bay Mayor Alex Walker.

“We must be able to effectively represent our community so that we can lead the district into a thriving future. We’ve been reviewing what that representation looks like for several months, and now we have a proposal out for our community to have their say.”

The two key changes proposed are the addition of one more councillor and changing the representation mix to “better reflect the way people live in the district.”

“The existing representation arrangement has served the district well for 17 years, however in recent years our community has changed,” Walker said.

“We think we need different skill sets to represent a community that is growing and changing. We need to offer the right representation for the Central Hawke’s Bay of today and the future, where issues are not necessarily limited to ‘rural’ or ‘urban’.

“That means providing representation that can be more district-focused and wider than the current town vs country options.”

This allows everyone in the community to vote for people who can represent the balance of ‘district’ interests and issues, as well as their rural or urban priorities, she said.

“A further benefit of the proposed changes is that we can ensure voters can easily engage with us, we can balance the workload across the council, we’ll be bringing a greater mix of skills and knowledge to the table, and we can better represent our communities’ desires.”

She said the ward structure has worked well in the past, but the aim is to add a new dynamic to representation to meet the current and future needs of our growing and thriving community.

The community is being offered several local ‘drop-in’ sessions to talk about the proposal. People can also ask a question or make a submission online or pick up a submission form available from the council offices or libraries until 25 August 2024.