Huge 12 months of progress
Opinion: The council recently approved our annual report for the year ended June 2021.
Even though we havemoved on, it is important to measure what and howwe are doing and take time to reflect.
In spite of the uncertainty created by Covid-19, council made excellent progress on our capital work programme, meeting 78.9 per cent of our performance targets. Our annual residents’ community satisfaction survey saw council’s overall performance sits at 81 per cent. Six hundred and fifty-three building consents and 721 code of compliance certificates were issued and our team completed 6767 building inspections. We processed 181 land use consents and 156 subdivision consents.
We completed 53 kilometres of reseals and hundreds of other roading and footpath maintenance projects, upgrades and other improvements across the district plus good progress on the Feilding to Palmy cycleway.
We adopted our Community Facilities Strategy which provides a framework for future decision making and investment in community and recreational facilities across the district.
With plans progressing for the Regional DistributionHub on Railway Rd, the Kawakawa Industrial Zone needs to be ready to accommodate more local industry. Council committed to the Turners Rd extension, which will link the existing Turners Rd to Kawakawa Rd to help facilitate the development of industrial zoned land in this area.
During the year we advertised surplus Council Special Development Zone land on Kawakawa Rd and South St, Feilding. Agreements will soon see the development of this land, attracting new businesses which in turnwill boost the commercial sector.
Council worked with owners of earthquake-prone priority buildings in the Feilding CBD to find ways to assist themwith their required strengtheningwork. We successfully introduced building owners to Seismic Performance Ltd, who use amore cost-effective approach to this work. Three buildings are now strengthened, 12 consents issued and a number of other buildings are in planning stages. Council worked with our community and Horizons Regional Council to introduce a new Feilding bus service which will operate separately to the Palmy to Feilding commuter service. In the last year this has involved the development of the service, as well as securing funding through Horizons’ Long Term Plan. This new Feilding bus service starts in early 2022.
Last year council was informed by GNS Science that the Raouterangi Faultline that runs along West St had been reclassified as an active fault line with a recurrence interval rate of between 5000 and 10,000 years.
Council released this information to affected residents and the wider public in February and then contracted GNS Science to conduct more research into the Raouterangi Fault to give usmore details to assist our planning for both civil defence and future development.
Council partners with Feilding Police and hakea Defence Force to deliver the CACTUS programme, an eight-week youth development programme focusing on physical and mental discipline. During 2020/21 two CACTUS programmes and a CACTUS leadership weekend were held from which 84 rangitahi graduated.
Our bigger infrastructure projects have progressed well.
The Manawatū Wastewater Centralisation Project involves the piping of untreatedwastewater from the villages of Halcombe, Sanson, Rongotea, Awahuri, Cheltenham and Kimbolton to the Manawatū Wastewater Treatment Plant in Feilding for treatment and disposal.
We finished the Sanson to Feilding pipeline, got design work under way for pipelines running from Halcombe to Mt Stewart and Rongotea to Awahuri Rd and got started on preliminary work on Cheltenham to Feilding, Kimbolton to Cheltenham, and Kauwhata to Awahuri pipelines.
The construction of a new Mangaweka Bridge started in September 2020 with the construction costs being shared by Manawatū District Council, Rangitīkei District Council and Waka Kotahi. We expect the bridge to be complete in early 2022, and it will be jointly owned by the two district councils.
The new Resource Recovery Centre on Kawakawa Rd has been built and is now ready for operational use. This facility allows us to expand our services to reducewaste to landfill in a range of ways, with more functions to follow.
The wellbeing of our residents was especially key this last year with Covid restrictions. Council continues to lead the co-ordination of our awesome welfare and community groupswho provide support, food, health care, safety measures and a friendly face, checking that we are all OK.
Throughout this year of uncertainty and change, our MDC Team has proven that they are resilient, productive and committed to responding well to our community’s needs. For now we are all looking forward to a summer break, albeit in a Covid environment where we still need to take extra care and stay safe.