Firstly, our roads. They’ve taken a real hammering. We are going to need to do more to maintain what roading integrity we have and to get recovery moving faster.
Secondly, stormwater. The recovery plans that we built with community following the cyclone put stormwater networks in the spotlight, and we’ve done a huge amount of reactive maintenance and fixes in the last few months. But if we are to make sure we build back better, we need a better plan and better tactical investment in the right place at the right time.
Thirdly, drinking water and wastewater, for which every household in the urban areas of CHB pays the same standard rate. We have slowed as much of our water infrastructure renewal programmes as we can. In particular, we can’t responsibly continue to upgrade our Takapau, Pōrangahau and Waipawa wastewater sites until independent flood reviews give us insight into how we rebuild safely around our rivers.
Of course, we can’t slow everything. We’ve prioritised pipe renewals, as we simply have to replace our oldest pieces of pipe network to try to get on top of leaks and breakages. We’re continuing work to secure water bores and upgrade wastewater plants where population growth and the largest industries are concentrated.
We must also drive forward the so-called “Hawke’s Bay model” to provide an effective, safe, affordable Three Waters service. This will be made possible by new Government legislation, and we’re working towards this keenly.
Our fourth focus area is on council-wide efficiencies regarding all programmes, delivery processes and operations, from personnel reductions to reviewing transfer station services. The frustrating thing about this is that even making hard decisions like closing services doesn’t save enough to reverse huge rates increases, as interest rates and inflation are so huge across our core infrastructure.
The incredible thing about local democracy, for which I continue to be very grateful, is the trust you place in the councillors that represent you as we work through difficult decisions. But this is also one of the toughest things I have ever had to do, because we’re people too. People who are also ratepayers, community members, business owners, volunteers, parents and grandparents. Our decisions around the council table affect the people like us whom we represent every day. We never take that lightly.
We also want you, our community, to be a part of these decisions.
We still have some work to do before we bring a complete set of options out to you at the end of March. Then we’ll need you to spend some time with us over the next couple of months to decide together how we get through.
