Whanganui District Council to keep rural kerbside recycling in rural areas despite petitions

Properties on Waireka Rd will remain part of Whanganui District Council’s kerbside recycling service. Photo / Mike Tweed

Whanganui District Council will not reduce its kerbside recycling network despite protests from some rural residents.

In August, the council received a petition from 63 residents from Papaiti and Waireka roads calling for the service to stop in their area, with a similar petition received in May from 39 residents on Pickwick Rd and Dickens Lane.

Both groups insist the rural areas they live in were never meant to be part of the kerbside network and residents did not realise they would be included at the time of consultation.

The 2022 consultation document said the service would be provided to Whanganui’s urban area plus the three villages.

This week, councillors voted 7-6 to keep the service as is until at least next year.

To change it now would mean a “difficult and slightly unwieldy” amendment to the council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), chief executive David Langford said.

Legal counsel Rob Goldsbury said the cost of amending the LTP would be between $50,000 and $70,000 and involved “re-doing” several of its decisions.

Councillor Jenny Duncan said the council was “a complicated beast” but that was not a reason to penalise the residents concerned.

“The bulk of people in this area have made it very clear they do not want recycling in this way.”

Councillor Kate Joblin said the Papaiti/Waireka group had made itself heard and the council would remember that when the service was reviewed next year.

However, she “could not incur a $50,000-70,000 cost at this council”.

Whanganui Rural Community Board member Judd Bailey said the board insisted the service be revisited.

“The ambiguity surrounding zoning and consultation demands clarity,” he said.

Whanganui district councillor Jenny Duncan.

Whanganui Mayor Andrew Tripe and councillors Charlotte Melser, Joblin, Josh Chandulal-Mackay, Peter Oskam, Glenda Brown, Philippa Baker-Hogan were in favour of the status quo and Whanganui Deputy Mayor Helen Craig and councillors Duncan, Michael Law, Ross Fallen, Charlie Anderson and Rob Vinsen were against it.

Langford said the original consultation process was open to the entire community, with a mixed view on the service in both rural and urban areas.

“If there was a weakness, it was in communicating back to our residents that the change has been made,” he said

“That does not flaw the consultation process. At worst, it is just poor communication and poor customer service, which we have acknowledged and do better with in the future.”

Papaiti Rd resident Barbara Gray told the Chronicle she and Dickens Lane resident Bill Simmonds were preparing to take the issue to the Ombudsman.

“I’ve been out on a 12 km round trip through our area for the last two weeks and counted the (recycling) bins that have been put out,” Gray said.

“Today (Wednesday) there were only six. People are just not into it.”

She said logging trucks already drove down Papaiti Rd, which was narrow and dipped, and the last thing residents needed was more large vehicles.

Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.