Only one of three supercity proposals to proceed

The Local Government Commission has binned draft proposals for single councils to preside over the Northland and Wellington regions, electing instead to further consult with the areas’ communities over other options for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their local bodies.

The commission is, however, forging ahead with a proposal for reorganising Hawkes Bay’s councils into one ‘supercity’ structure.

That’s because the commission’s members believe there is community support in Hawke's Bay for such a transformation, whereas there iss a distant lack of enthusiasm among Wellington and Northland residents for that scale of change.

Northland Regional Council (NRC) chairman Bill Shepherd welcomed the decision, noting his organisation had opposed the commission's most recent draft proposal in March last year and had been waiting for a new draft since then.

The council’s objections had centred on the commission’s emphasis on the use of ‘community boards’ instead of the NRC’s preference for stronger ‘local boards’ with their own powers and budgets, as well as the lack of options in the draft for Maori representation and decision-making.

Meanwhile, the proposal to create a single council from the nine that currently serve Wellington, Hutt Valley, Porirua, Kapiti and Wairarapa had been rejected by approximately 90% of the 10,000 people who made submissions on it.

The commission has now invited the nine councils to come up with another local government structure that residents will find more palatable.

According to Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown, that structure needs to be “much more pragmatic and practical” than the supercity proposal, which was too ambitious and would have divorced local people too much from the council decision-making process.

The proposal for a Wellington super-city has been scrapped. @WellingtonMayor says "Miramar to Masterton has always seemed too far"

— Jenna Lynch (@JennaLynchNZ) June 9, 2015

Supercity dumped. Batcity and Spidercity still possibilities.

— Philip Matthews (@secondzeit) June 9, 2015

The terrible idea of a Wellington super city encompassing the Wairarapa has been scrapped owing to it being a terrible idea.

— Toby Manhire (@toby_etc) June 9, 2015