Councillor: Southland District Council ‘choking in bureaucracy’

The Southland District Council is choking in bureaucracy and living beyond its means as rates continue to rise, a frustrated councillor says.

Derek Chamberlain, a first-term councillor and sheep and beef farmer from Eastern Bush, spoke out at a council finance meeting on Wednesday, saying he was venting his concerns and frustrations.

“I am concerned our rates continue to rise, and we have got a ratepayer base which is going to be horribly reluctant to pay too much more. “When does it stop?” he asked.

Something was fundamentally wrong in the system, Chamberlain suggested.

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The 54-year-old said he had never seen a new road being built between Eastern Bush and Invercargill, “and yet nowadays we can hardly afford to fix a pothole”.

“I feel like we are choking in bureaucracy and not out there fixing roads, I just find it totally frustrating.

“I find each year we keep increasing our rates, and probably delivering less to the ratepayers, which is quite concerning.”

Senior council staff member Nicole Taylor responded by saying the Southland District was a massive area with a massive roading network; and it had a bucketload of assets in small towns with small populations.

“That’s our challenge, we don’t have a lot of ratepayers to pay for all this massive infrastructure base,” Taylor said.

She suggested the days of “kicking the can down the road” [leaving infrastructure projects for another year] were gone.

“We are no longer doing that. We are actually fronting up and saying, to maintain these assets this is how much it costs. And that’s what the Long Term Plan was about. It was about putting that money in, funding that level of renewal … and the reality is we have a very small ratepayer base.”

Chamberlain doubled down, saying when the roads between Eastern Bush and Invercargill were built there would have been even less ratepayers.

“In the old days, if you said build a road … you went and built it. Now there seems to be a whole level of bureaucracy. I would imagine half the money is spent in the room in the office before we actually get to making the road.

“We are living beyond our means … and choking ourselves in bureaucracy with the paperwork and health and safety and not delivering out in the field, and it’s a real concern.”

Mayor Rob Scott said it was important to remember what the council had delivered, pointing to its $43m work plan and the $30m Te Anau wastewater plant.

“So there’s a whole lot of stuff that is being done which is reflected in the rates.”

Cr Tom O’Brien suggested the key was to focus on the projects that were needed given the economic climate.

The council’s overall total rates are budgeted to increase by $4.6m, or 7.84%, over the previous year.

At the meeting, councillors voted to recommend to the full council that no formal public consultation be undertaken before voting on the annual plan.

Council communications manager Louise Pagan said the council’s long term plan was not significantly different from its draft annual plan. Given the long term plan had already been extensively consulted on, as was required by legislation, councillors decided to engage with the public on the annual plan rather than formally consult.

Information on the issues would still be provided to the public, and feedback would be sought, Pagan said.

“We certainly want to hear from our communities, but in a less formal way than the legislated consultation process.”