Council takes meetings off the road

Northland Regional councillors during their monthly meeting at the Parua Bay Tavern on Tuesday. Photo / John Stone

Northland Regional councillors have cancelled their monthly and bi-monthly meetings held outside its head office due to poor turnout.

Only one member of the public, Ruatangata farmer Alan Agnew, attended the council's June meeting held at the Parua Bay Tavern last Tuesday while previous meetings also had a low turnout.

Council chairman Bill Shepherd admitted after last week's meeting the decision to better interact with the public via meetings outside the NRC head office on Water St in Whangarei had not worked.

The decision not to have any further meetings in constituencies was made before Tuesday's meeting in Parua Bay.

"The turnout's been disappointing. The whole idea behind having meetings in different constituencies was to give the community better opportunity to interact with the council but that hasn't worked," Mr Shepherd said.

He said apart from poor turnout and cost, council staff were inconvenienced as they have to be away from their offices from longer periods.

"We've had one or two people attend some of our meetings and the biggest crowd we had was between 12 and 15 in Kerikeri in April where we approved the Regional Land Transport Plan and I think most of those that turned up were members of the Pipiwai action group."

Last year, the councillors met at the Mangawhai Club in January, in Tutukaka in June, in Dargaville a month later, Kaikohe in September, Taipa in October and Kerikeri in November and April this year.

When asked about possible reasons for the low public turnout, Mr Shepherd said: "We are not controversial enough. People get wound up with issues that affect their day-to-day lives."

He said another reason for the low turnout could be that the public already had liaison with the council through a number of catchment committees.

"For us, it has always been a bit of a challenge to engage the community," he said.