Local board proposal in the mail

Consultation is due to begin next week on a proposal for a Golden Bay local board.

The Local Government Commission is due to release the consultation document on Monday.

Commission lead adviser Gavin Beattie said it would set out options of what a Golden Bay local board might look like, what it might do and what it might cost.

A copy of the document was scheduled to be delivered to mailboxes across the Tasman District today.

The submission period would close on August 14, Beattie said.

If approved, the local board would replace the existing Golden Bay Community Board.

For the working group behind the proposal, the imminent release of the consultation document was welcome news.

Working group chairwoman and Golden Bay Community Board member Averill Grant said it had been ‘‘a long time since we first started out’’ in 2018.

An application for the establishment of a local board was lodged with the commission at the end of October 2018 but several delays followed due to the Pigeon Valley fire, a change in legislation and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Grant said she believed the need remained for a local board and the increased autonomy it would provide for the Golden Bay community.

‘‘Probably even more so since we’ve had the virus,’’ she said, referring to Covid-19. ‘‘We might have to be more self-sufficient.’’

Grant urged Golden Bay residents to participate in the consultation. She said the wider Tasman District should also care but ‘‘I don’t think they will’’.

Golden Bay had the ‘‘isolation factor’’ of Takaka Hill, which separated it from the most populated area of Tasman District.

The Bay was a rural environment but it was governed by the Tasman District Council, which was a largely urban local authority, Grant said.

A local board would likely be allocated responsibility for decisions about nonregulatory activities, giving greater autonomy to the people of the Bay.

However, the detail of what’s in the commission’s consultation document is under wraps until Monday. Grant said she had received no heads-up about what it contained. Nor has the council.

At a meeting last week, mayor Tim King said the council would see the proposal ‘‘at the same time as everybody else’’.

Council chief executive Janine Dowding told councillors the commission’s decision after it received feedback on the consultation document would be irreversible. She assumed the council would want to make a submission.

Two seasonal workers have been jointly accused of raping a woman in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

The two Tongan men, who cannot be named, were orchard workers in Motueka under the Recognised Employer Scheme at the time of the alleged offence.

They have since moved to Marlborough for work.

They had their first appearance on the charge at the Blenheim District Court on Monday with the help of an interpreter, as