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| Current Ward Boundaries in Christchurch |
Christchurch City Council is
currently reviewing the way we vote for our local councillors and community
board members. All councils must review
representation across their territory and ensure that it is fair and that every
ward has similar sized populations.
Every three years, half of the country’s territorial local authorities
go through this process. Many reviews
are not a big deal, however for Christchurch this year, it is.
Why? Because people have moved since the
earthquakes so the existing wards are very uneven and need considerable changes. In addition to this, Banks Peninsula District
Council amalgamated with Christchurch City Council in 2005 and were permitted
to vary their representation from what the Local Government Electoral Act law
stipulates while the new arrangements bedded in. Ten years is adequate bedding-in time, so now the
Banks Peninsula communities need to be brought into some kind of alignment with
other parts of the City.
Halswell is affected by both
the shift in population to this side of the City, and by the need to ensure that Banks Peninsula
communities are both in a ward of similar population size to the other wards in
the City and in wards that do not feel wrong or “foreign.”
The wards as they stand do
not serve Halswell particularly well, given that Halswell arguably has no
councillors and no community board members actually living in the area. Both of the Councillors that represent us
live in Riccarton and our community board members are mostly Riccarton and
Hornby based, with one in Hoon Hay/ Hilmorton (I must add here that I’m NOT
casting aspersions on the community board, who are all nice people. I am just
commenting that they do not live in our community).
Interestingly, figures
indicate that Christchurch has a very low number of councillors per head of
population when compared to other cities in New Zealand. In Christchurch, each councillor represents 27,435
people, whereas in Wellington, for example, there are about 14,102 people per
councillor and in Dunedin there are 8,823 per councillor. Many feel that we should increase the number of councillors to bring ourselves more into line with other Councils around New Zealand and because of the extra work resulting from the earthquake.
An idea being presented is to
have 20 wards around the City and Peninsula with a councillor from each one. This would bring it more into line with representation in other cities and, arguably, spread the load a bit more the Councillors who are
currently managing a huge amount between them.
There would be one community board for every three wards so the number
of community boards would be similar to what we have now.
What do you think? Do you
have any thoughts about this? Would you
like to know more? The Council have
talked to many people about this and are now running workshops to get feedback
on their ideas. They are keen to hear
what people think.
There will be a workshop about
this on Thursday 12th March 2015 in the Harvard Lounge at 31 Corsair
Drive in Wigram. You can find out more
at http://www.ccc.govt.nz/thecouncil/haveyoursay/representativereview.aspx. If you can’t attend look at the forms on the
webpage and provide your views there!
