Public submissions could derail the Queenstown Lakes District Council’s (QLDC) agreement “in principle” to disband Wanaka’s community board.

One of the Wanaka representatives on the Representation Review Advisory Group, set up earlier this year by the QLDC and tasked with reviewing district representation, has spoken out against the proposed demise of the board.

Now speaking as a ratepayer and local Wanaka resident, Viv Milsom said the Wanaka Community Board (WCB) should be strengthened, not disbanded, and she appeals to locals to support the WCB in public submissions currently underway.

Viv said the public should be aware the majority of the seven-person advisory group did not vote in favour of the recommendation to disband community boards.

“Two of us voted against it; two abstained; and three voted in favour - so it only passed by the narrowest of margins,” she said. 

Viv Milsom 

She said she was concerned that locals are being misled by the QLDC’s “stated intention” to disband the WCB as if it’s a foregone conclusion.

“My impression is that Wanaka people are not aware they’re about to lose their community board,” she said.

Council wants community boards gone

In a media statement the QLDC said the Advisory Group’s recommendation to disband the existing Wanaka Community Board “reflects a current inequity that exists as no other area or community within the district has a community board”.

This assumed inequity “is simply wrong”, Viv said. Wanaka was identified as a community of interest three decades ago and is entitled to have a community board. 

“That has not changed - the fact it is the only community board in the district is immaterial,” she said.

The QLDC’s media statement also said: “The group’s findings concluded that the loss of the community board in Wanaka would be offset by the increase in the number of the Upper Clutha-based councillors around the council table and improve community representation”. 

It also described the WCB as “unnecessary bureaucracy”. 

“It’s the complete opposite,” Viv said. “These are elected representatives of our community; they are not bureaucrats.” 

The council was also misleading the public with its perception that the one extra councillor would provide more effective representation than four councillors plus the community board. 

“It’s not a question of either or,” Viv said, local residents can have four councillors and keep its existing board. 

Why does Wanaka have a community board?

When community boards were established in 1989, Wanaka was entitled to create a board because of its distinct geographic separation from Queenstown, its different culture and values, and its strong sense of identity.

“If anything, that sense of identity has only increased as the population has grown,” Viv said.

Former WCB chair Rachel Brown said the WCB’s existence was not an inequity as the QLDC claimed. 

“The board exists to remedy the inequity of council being based in Queenstown,” she said. “The WCB's role is to provide this local, on-the-ground knowledge and accountability that has been lacking in a Queenstown-based council.”

Current WCB chair Barry Bruce concurred, saying: “The strength of community boards is their ability to bring decision-making down to a level where citizens can have real influence.”

He also said the four WCB members plus the four Wanaka Ward councillors (Wanaka is entitled to have one additional councillor based on its population) would balance the eight councillors proposed for the Queenstown wards.

Is the community board effective?

Wanaka-based councillor Quentin Smith, who was also the WCB chair for a short time, believes the WCB “has become ineffective over time”. 

The board “has fought for more business and involvement...[but] it meets very irregularly, with workshops and strategic discussions almost non-existent. [The board has] no list of goals or projects and no agenda beyond that of the council at large,” he said 

“I think that the board also struggles because it is the only board in the district so structurally it is anomalous in the district,” Quentin said. 

Viv said the QLDC needs to strengthen the WCB by honouring its governance protocols with the WCB which state “the board will be consulted on significant policy and planning documents that impact on the Wanaka Ward”. 

The WCB has been excluded from decision-making discussions on key Wanaka issues, she said, including the future of the Wanaka Airport, local speed limits and the centralisation of QLDC staff on Ardmore Street.

Public submissions needed now

QLDC’s survey and submissions to the representation review opened on July 5 and will close on August 6. Formal hearings will follow, but only those who have made a submission or completed the survey are permitted to speak at the hearings.

Barry and Viv encourage all locals to make their thoughts known by completing the QLDC’s survey here or emailing a written submission to [email protected] (subject line: ‘Representation Review’).

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