Annual Report 2010/11

The year under review has been extremely busy and challenging for Greater Wellington. Elections in October 2010 brought us four new Councillors and we subsequently implemented a new committee system. This is based on local government’s statutory responsibilities for community wellbeing (environmental, economic, social and cultural) and we think it better reflects the diverse nature of our business.

Tough economic times prevail – we are acutely aware of the need to provide value for money. Yet within this context, we have not only undertaken normal delivery of planned business across a wide range of activities, but we have also made significant progress on key strategic policies and projects.

A new Biodiversity Strategy has been completed and endorsed by the Council. The strategy provides an integrated framework to assist the Council in our leadership role and to ensure ecosystem functions are maintained and high-value biodiversity areas protected.

We have also adopted a new Parks Network Plan that, for the first time, provides a consolidated and consistent guide for managing the regional parks network. The network itself was enlarged in February when the recently acquired Baring Head land was opened to the public as a valuable extension to East Harbour Regional Park.

The Wairarapa Water Use project became more formalised with the establishment of a governance group involving local councils, iwi and potential users in Wairarapa. This project could have major benefits for the region in all aspects of wellbeing.

As with previous years, transport has been a key area of delivery. Our mandate includes public transport funding, together with working with the Regional Transport Committee on planning the region’s overall transport network. As part of this, we implemented the real-time information system for public transport users, and consulted and made significant progress on the Hutt Corridor Plan and Regional Freight Plan.

While public transport delivery remains a vexed issue, particularly with regard to rail, the biggest achievements this year were introducing the new Matangi trains and the new rail package we agreed with the Government and KiwiRail. The agreement gives us certainty of funding from the Government and among other initiatives will enable the old Ganz Mavag fleet to be refurbished over the next few years.

In today’s environment, local government needs to constantly look at ways of being more effective at dealing with complex issues that span current political and cultural boundaries. Greater Wellington works closely with a range of groups round the region – the volunteers who help with our parks and streams, landowners with whom we work on soil erosion and environmental protection measures, schools and businesses with travel programmes, iwi in a range of activities and, on a regular and bigger scale, the region’s local authorities.

We also welcome interest in our work from individuals who may not have any particular group affiliation. During the year under review, several hundred people throughout the region helped with the early stage of the development of our new Regional Plan and there will be further opportunities for involvement in the near future as we progress the plan. This work is being led by our Natural Resource Plan Committee (Te Upoko Taiao) itself a collaborative model with regional iwi. We are taking a bottom-up approach and the objective is to produce not only a new set of regulations but also a set of non-regulatory tools that will together future proof our regional environment.

As a regional council we also have a role in ensuring that our economy is both resilient in the face of unexpected change and able to take advantage of new opportunities as they arise. A range of our activities support this – including commuter transport, a healthy environment and bulk water supply. We are also part of a partnership with the city and district councils of the region through the Wellington Regional Strategy, which is aimed at sustainable economic development. While some delivery improvements are needed, Greater Wellington and the region’s territorial authorities have agreed to continue promoting economic development at the regional scale and we will be reviewing the delivery in this forthcoming year.

On behalf of Councillors, I thank our Greater Wellington staff and the many others round the region who contributed to a year of successful delivery.

Download a copy:
Annual Report 2011 (PDF, 2.8 MB)
Annual Report Summary (PDF, 516 KB)