Former Council Boss Urges Nelson Tasman To Consider Merging

Friday, 31 January 2025, 8:19 pm
Article: Max Frethey - Local Democracy Reporter

Nelson and Tasman must reconsider amalgamation, while also sharing more services, as both councils grapple with rising costs, a former council boss says.

Former Tasman District Council chief executive Janine Dowding made the comment in a June 2024 report commissioned by the Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce which was released Thursday afternoon.

The report, presented to Nelson City Council by Dowding and chamber chief executive Ali Boswijk on Thursday, was welcomed by amalgamation-advocate Mayor Nick Smith.

“Financial sustainability is becoming a critical issue for many councils and reinforces the importance of taking measures to maximise efficiency and effectiveness,” the report read.

“Nelson and Tasman councils need to accept responsibility for genuinely examining both shared services and amalgamation. Any reluctance to do so is not in the best interests of the region.”

In her report, Dowding highlighted that amalgamation would take about five years to implement and so cannot be relied on to immediately ease cost pressures.

In the meantime, the two councils should take every opportunity to share services at a significantly greater level than they do now, adding that she believed the current level of service sharing was “taking the heat” out of expectations that all opportunities were pursued.

While Nelson and Tasman recently lodged a joint bid for a regional deal with the Government, Nelson also opted to explore a solo water model when new water legislation provided an opportunity for greater cross-council collaboration because of the expected cost benefit for its own ratepayers despite Tasman’s willingness to cooperate.

However, Dowding added that enduring shared accountability was also needed in areas where services are shared, and that might not be achieved without amalgamation.

She had labelled public transport as an area where there was high collaboration between the councils, and last year a lack of oversight was blamed for almost $2 million in overspend for the launch of the regional eBus service.

Nelson and Tasman previously voted on amalgamation in 2012. Though 57 per cent of Nelson residents had supported merging, the proposal fell over after 74 per cent of Tasman voters rejected it.

Should the question of amalgamation be discussed further, the issues of rates, debt, and representation which scuppered the 2012 proposal would need to be addressed, Dowding said.

An independent community reference group that wasn’t led by just one council would likely be needed to explore options and further the regional discussion, she added.

Nelson Mayor Nick Smith, who has long said the region would be stronger combined, welcomed the report’s findings.

He intended to have further discussions with both councils to see if there was the “willingness and appetite” to further the conversation about amalgamation and shared services by creating such a reference group.

“If there are ways of which we in Nelson and Tasman can do things more effectively and more efficiently, I think we need to be up to having that discussion.”

He emphasised that the amalgamation discussion needed to be collaborative, rather than led by Nelson.

Newly-appointed Minister for the South Island James Meager met with the council on Thursday.

The question of structural change, including amalgamation, has also reared its head in recent months in South Canterbury, Southland, and on the West Coast.

He said the Government’s view was that locals should decide on the structure of their region.

“What I'm most interested in is doing what works best for the region and getting the most out of the region.”

The 2012 proposal estimated that between 5.5 and 6.1 per cent of the councils’ annual operating and capital expenditure could be saved if Nelson and Tasman merged.

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