Community representatives have stepped up to make it clear they support the continuation of the Wānaka Community Board following public consultation about its future.

Last week’s representation review hearings (via zoom on August 26-27) reinforced the community’s desire to retain the Wānaka Community Board (WCB) against the recommendation of the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) to disband it.

Now councillors Niamh Shaw and Quentin Smith, and deputy mayor Calum MacLeod, say they will back the board.

Niamh and Quentin said the public consultation and community feedback on the issue of the WCB’s future had been thought-provoking.

At the start of the representation review process Quentin had made clear his frustration with a “dormant” community board and questioned the need to retain something that was “effectively inactive”; and Niamh had queried whether the WCB “was effective enough to justify the resources and funding that council puts to it”. 

But following the hearings, both thanked the submitters who they said had mounted a convincing defence in support of retaining the board.

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“There were some people who really shifted my perspective,” Niamh said. 

She said many submitters acknowledged the WCB had been far from effective in recent times but they presented “compelling reasons as to why local governance is increasingly important in the political landscape”.

One constituent even told her: “If the board is broken, then council has an obligation to fix it,” she said.

As a result she will be advocating to retain the board, but said it requires a commitment from QLDC and its elected members to “empower and facilitate it towards a position of ‘authority, influence and dignity’, as a submitter put it”.

In a letter to submitters, Quentin apologised and admitted he’d misread community sentiment on the issue of the WCB.

“However, through the hearings, submissions, ongoing discussions and with the parallel issues of three waters reform, RMA reform and local government reform, I have come to the view that the WCB should be retained but that it must become effective and active.”

He said two key things must change: the board must demand attention and undertake its own work on its own programme, and council executive and management must support and empower the board with appropriate business.

The community must also call on the board, Quentin said.

At a council meeting in June this year, Calum voted in favour of a series of recommendations, including the disbanding of community boards, which were to be adopted “for the purposes of public consultation” on the representation review.

That vote suggested Calum did not support retaining the WCB but, he told the Wānaka App this week, as a result of the community consultation “the community expressed a clear desire to retain this level of representation…[and] I will always strive to represent the community”. 

“QLDC must embrace the efficacy of the WCB as well as ‘grassroots representation’... anything else simply fuels the perception QLDC is ‘watering down’ representation”. 

“I remain in favour of retaining the WCB and... striving by whatever means we can to make it more effective,” he said. 

Council will now consider the submissions and choose to either retain the original recommendations or modify them, with a decision expected to be made at the full council meeting on September 16. 

Following that, there will be a one-month period of public appeals and/or objections. If any appeals or objections are received, the Electoral Commission will make a final decision. 

PHOTO: QLDC