Bypass stirs mayoral debate

Tensions flared when the long talked of Blenheim bypass, pitched to unclog traffic along the town’s main highway, was raised at a Marlborough mayoral debate.

About 250 members of the public watched on as Marlborough’s mayoral and Blenheim ward candidates battled it out at a pre-election debate at the ASB Theatre on Tuesday night.

Defending his call for a bypass on State Highway 1 was mayoral and Blenheim ward candidate Jamie Arbuckle, who said the Marlborough District Council needed to develop a business case for it.

The case, which he hoped would be funded by the Provincial Growth Fund, would provide several traffic options, the number one of which would ‘‘most likely be a bypass’’, he said. ‘‘The mayor is going to do nothing, so in three years time there will still be nothing in place,’’ he said.

‘‘Then all of a sudden, we are going to have a real crisis that we will all see in front of us every time we drive.’’

However incumbent mayor John Leggett, who is running again, hit back at Arbuckle, saying he wanted ‘‘honesty’’ during the debate.

‘‘I haven’t heard you [Arbuckle] utter the word ‘bypass’ in the nine years I have been on the council, until three weeks ago,’’ he said.

Leggett said a bypass had been on the council’s agenda since he started as a councillor in 2010, but it was too expensive to justify.

‘‘We know it is in excess of $200 million to fund it, and that is just a desktop estimate. Our current debt at council is $12m,’’ he said.

‘‘The project requires land acquisition, it requires two river crossings, [and] it is on land that is subject to liquefaction.

‘‘It is a nightmare of a project.’’

The council could ask the Government to fund the bypass, Leggett said, but its Provincial Growth Fund was ‘‘over-subscribed’’, and the few minutes saved in Grove Rd was ‘‘not going to cut it’’.

Arbuckle replied: ‘‘Sounds like the status quo. We do nothing.’’

Mayoral and Marlborough Sounds candidate Rick Ireland said that while he supported the bypass, he appreciated Leggett’s ‘‘financial caution’’, as it would cost ‘‘a big load of money’’.

‘‘We should keep it at the forefront of our thinking but watch the money, because people will have to pay for it,’’ Ireland said.

Ireland later came under fire for saying climate change was a ‘‘fad’’ and was ‘‘not based in reality’’, after a question on whether Marlborough would look at declaring a climate emergency.

‘‘A lot of councils, well more than half, have signed this climate emergency, whatever they call this, and I am not a fan of this.

‘‘A lot of people ... have forgotten that if you haven’t got [carbon dioxide], which is considered a pollutant, then you are not going to get photosynthesis, trees won’t grow, and we won’t get oxygen.’’

The father-of-two said he thought the council should not use ratepayer funds on climate change adaptation and mediation.

The two other candidates did not warm to the idea that the council should do nothing about climate change. ‘‘Anyone who doesn’t believe in climate change only needs to look at weather patterns ... The amount of frosts we get in Marlborough is nowhere near what it used to be,’’ Arbuckle said. ‘‘It is happening and ... quicker than ever before.’’

He said the decision to declare a climate emergency had been left to the next council. He believed Marlborough should declare.

Leggett said there was ‘‘no question’’ climate change was real.

‘‘It is possible for myself as mayor to be able to sign a climate emergency declaration [but] I have taken the view that it should be a council decision, and ... hold off until after the election.’’ projects, such as the $285,000 railway station bus stop, and be ‘‘serious’’ about the money it had.

Leggett defended the bus shelter, saying the ‘‘open compartment’’ was a ‘‘planned’’ design feature, and that ‘‘quite a bit of bus shelter’’ remained covered.

He also said the council had an annual operating budget of $140m, of which $70m came from ratepayers, so if it got a bus shelter wrong on the odd occasion, it had done ‘‘pretty well’’.

Ireland said if he became mayor, and couldn’t persuade the council to fix the hole, he would get out there with his tools and do it himself.

A Marlborough Sounds ward candidates meeting will be held at Havelock Town Hall from 1pm on October 2. A Wairau-awatere candidates meeting will be held at the Awatere Hall from noon on October 3.

You can send in your question ideas for candidates by emailing Marlborough Regional Editor Ian Allen on ian. allen@stuff.co.nz.