Letter To Manukau

Letter To Manukau

Friday 20 March 2009 - Issue 63

Botanic Garden Festival

Having visited the Ellerslie Flower Show in Christchurch briefly this year, I am proud to support the Botanic Garden Festival garden we have established in Manukau city.

There's been a huge amount of time and effort put into this event at the Botanic Gardens, which is due to start on  Friday and will run over three days.

The amount of work our officers and support team have put in is extraordinary and we have had some strong input from many of the councillors.

Our garden festival will have focus on kids and, of course, gardens.  I want to encourage our community to turn up and to enjoy the occasion, which is free.

The marquee events include the Manukau Street and Garden Awards or Manukau in Bloom Awards as it is now called and it will be held on Friday night. 

This will see the winners of the best gardens in the city being invited to accept certificates recognising their hard work.

On Saturday, Shan and I are hosting the Mayoress' garden party. 

The response has been fantastic. 

We were initially looking to have 200 people there, but because of the amazing response, we now have 350 guests joining Shan and I for that evening, and have had to close off the event because there's no more room in the tent!

We greatly appreciate the response of businesses and the wider community to this occasion, which we are using as a fundraising event to help KidzFirst, and children's health in our community.

Transport

This week, we saw the Government confirming it was terminating the regional fuel tax which was to assist in the building of the Auckland region's public transportation network.
It now means there is a degree of uncertainty as to how the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) will fund large scale public transport projects, and in particular, the electrification of the suburban train network. 

What we are concerned about in our own community is the ARC's contribution to the Manukau suburban rail line and the train station to be built. 

The contribution needed to be around $14 million and a similar amount was needed to finalise the upgrade of the Half Moon Bay ferry terminal.  We are now unsure where the money for this is coming from.

These are critical works which require ARTA funding and which are now in doubt because of the abolishment of a regional petrol tax. 

Our Minister of Transport has been clear in his assertions the Government will pick up the tab for the electrification of the suburban rail network.  But, there has been less of a commitment relating to other public transport upgrades.

It is essential that we settle on funding arrangements to ensure we deliver the long term retrofitting and future-proofing of our region's transport needs.

The region has finally got total agreement across all the cities in the ARC for the delivery of a transport plan and vision that will be crucial to us moving forward over the next 20 to 30 years.

A key part of delivering this vision is the need to get the funding mechanism agreed, finalised and executed without any further changes.

This is a debate that needs to be sorted.  It's a debate that, in my view, is more important than the present pre-occupation with the governance structure of the Auckland region.

We cannot fund this extraordinary work purely on rates, or tolls or congestion tax or petrol taxes.  We are looking at a significant shortfall between our vision and our ability to deliver, by many billions of dollars.

This issue requires total focus.  Agreement to ensure a positive outcome to funding transportation cannot be postponed any further.

Have a great week!

Len Brown

Mayor of Manukau
ends

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