Mayor Wants Local Solution For Ashburton Water

Tuesday, 18 March 2025, 7:07 pm
Article: Jonathan Leask - Local Democracy Reporter

Ashburton’s Mayor is insisting the replacement model of the water zone committee will involve community representation.

The Canterbury Mayoral Forum is reviewing Canterbury’s water zone committees and proposing to replace them with local leadership groups.

Mayor Neil Brown is adamant the council can develop what that group looks like for Mid Canterbury.

He made it clear at the council workshop with Environment Canterbury senior strategy manager Cameron Smith on the proposed zone committee restructure last week.

Since the meeting council democracy and engagement group manager Toni Durham stressed the urgency on preparing the councils ideas, with the Mayoral Forum set to decide in May.

“It’s clear that a local solution is needed and we’re turning our minds to how we do this in a swift and meaningful way,” Durham said.

The zone committees, joint committee of the local district council and ECan, were formed in 2010 as part of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy.

The Mayoral Forum started a review into the committees in 2023 which has resulted in the proposed new model.

At the workshop Smith noted each local leadership group had the flexibility to “determine what that community connection looks like”.

The proposed ‘three-legged stool’ model includes councils, ECan and mana whenua representatives, but Ashburton wants a fourth leg – the community.

Chief executive Hamish Riach said the council sees the community as an integral part of the leadership group.

Smith said there were key questions around the scope, scale, structure and operation of each group.

Brown believes the council can come up with the answers for a Mid Canterbury group and the most important thing is its purpose.

“We need to find the function out first.

“Once we decide what we want [the committee]to do, then we can decide who we want to do it.”

It is a tight timeline to come up with the answers before the Mayoral Forum decision.

Riach said any new model proposed by the forum can’t be established without the council “being happy with its form and function”.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

© Scoop Media

Local Democracy Reporting

Content from the Local Democracy Reporting (LDR) service is published by Scoop as a registered New Zealand Media Outlet LDR Partner.