Maxwell the Springer Spaniel’s Blog

My Master went out last night (leaving me to warm my paws by the fire). Boy when he got home, did he have a big moan to me. After 10 minutes I slunk off to my bed, so I’ll leave him to tell the story……..

The Hurunui Council held a public meeting on the 2nd May in Cheviot with an agenda of discussing the Cheviot and Coastal Growth Strategy. Over 100 people turned up which somewhat surprised the organizers.

Things didn’t start off that well with a Powerpoint presentation using yellow wording on a white background which looks fine on your PC, but display it on a screen and it all merges indistinguishable. This presentation outlined population growth, empty sections and building consents issued for 2006. Although a bit hard to follow, it appears that there is little population growth and what seemed to me, a reasonable amount of empty residential land. The census data looks a bit dodgy to me as according to their figures 26 people are normally resident in Gore Bay. Now I know for sure that the permanent population is at least half that amount and maybe the visitors or campers staying that night were included.  Even if the figures are correct the population data is static over the last 10 years and Cheviot has a net loss of 30 since 1996.

Then we were invited to share our vision of the Cheviot District in 25 years time. Well, I cast a look around the room and probably over half there (including myself) will count ourselves lucky to be walking the earth anywhere in the year 2032 and even if we are we’ll be more concerned with what time dinner is and will the nurse bring all the pills to keep us functioning for the next 24 hours.

We were all cajoled into composing a wish list much as if we’d all won lotto.  We didn’t have to think about the practicalities of the suggestions, the Council would find the answers on how to make it happen we were assured. Yeah right!  Being naturally suspicious of bureaucracy through having worked in public service at one time I kept looking for the real reason for the meeting, but it eluded me. The Council can’t seem to afford to provide for the basics in 2007 (such as a potable drinking water supply, rubbish recycling etc.) so why put resources into formulating a growth strategy for a static population?

We were then split into groups to discuss 6 key points.

• The appropriateness of the current Cheviot town boundary to meet its growth needs into the future
• Development opportunities on lifestyle blocks
• The extent of the Gore bay and Hurunui urban areas
• Additional settlement options on the coastline Claverley to NapeNape
• Identify the need for a review of satellite areas such as Domett & Parnassus
• Acknowledge and review the historical land titles of the towns and surrounding areas.

The groups were split arbitrarily rather than those people who had residential or special interest in specific areas and as most of us were sharing the same hall space it was impossible to hear, or be heard and make much of a contribution. As population growth is not imminent, items 1,3 and 4 didn’t seem to have much relevance which left items 2 and 6 for which something useful might come out

I left the meeting fairly disillusioned before the summing up, but I have it on good authority that the residents did make their feelings known on several issues which the Council will ignore at their peril and also that during conversations over a cup of tea after the meeting, mention was made of plans Developers have for the several areas which are in the pipeline so perhaps in my cynical view the only ball the Council had their eye on was item 2. (Development opportunities on lifestyle blocks) and the rest was just a smoke screen.