A local board for local solutions?

It all started – or ended – with a century-old building they wanted to tear down for a car park.

Just months after Tasman District Council (TDC) lost a twoyear battle against Golden Bay groups over the demolition of the historic grandstand at Takaka’s recreation park, some residents have started the ball rolling to take back control after years of frustration and feeling unheard by a council they say doesn’t take into account the needs of a distinct and isolated community.

In a 2017 report commissioned by the TDC from independent social researcher Amy Shattock to examine the Golden Bay-TDC relationship, 100 per cent of respondents recognised a problem, , and 24 per cent believed the distrust was so ingrained it was irreparable.

Shattock reported that the most common theme was ‘‘frustration and futility’’ against council, staff interaction, and local and central government policy.

A working group is planning to lodge an application with the Local Government Commission (LGC). If accepted, it would see the council ditch the Golden Bay community board for a new, more autonomous body.

A local board would have more power over non-regulatory decisions such as parks, libraries, reserves, events, and the running costs of council assets.

The current board has been criticised as ‘‘a toothless tiger’’ whose recommendations to council often go ignored – but how much more bite would a new board really have?

Local board working group chair Averill Grant, who is also a community board member, believes a new board is the answer because residents want ‘‘more local decisions made locally, and by locals’’.

She said Golden Bay was ‘‘isolated and with a need to be self-sufficient’’, and this was something the council didn’t get.

‘‘There’s a lot of local knowledge and people here who know what we want and need, and who have the intelligence, passion and skills to make them happen.’’

However, Lis Pederson said in a letter to the GB Weekly that a local board would ‘‘not be a return to the utopian days’’ of Golden Bay having its own council, and that she ‘‘pitied the eventual local board members’’, because a lot of the vitriol currently directed at TDC would be directed at them.

After the Auckland ‘‘Super City’’ was formed in 2010, Waiheke Island and a group in rural Rodney tried to get their own councils, a move rejected by the LGC. Auckland Council then launched a pilot on Waiheke Island, giving more decisionmaking to the new local board, with a manager working on community projects.

The LGC’s acting lead adviser, Gavin Beattie, spoke to the community board and Golden Bay residents last week, warning that a reorganisation would likely be a ‘‘potentially long’’ process.

The working group has said it believes a local board should cost ratepayers approximately the same as the community board.

‘‘There’s a lot of . . . people here who know what we want and need.’’

Averill Grant, local board working group chair