Joint council approach to buses rejected
THE Otago Regional Council has initially rejected a jointmanagement proposal for Dunedin’s public transport, but councillors say they have been ‘‘waiting endlessly’’ for the city council to come to the party on bus services.
At a regional council meeting yesterday it voted 64 against exploring both joint management of bus services with, or complete relinquishment of those of services to, the city council.
At a meeting on Tuesday, city councillors voted to ask the regional council to consider establishing a joint committee to govern public transport in Dunedin.
This follows community criticism of the regional council over its failure to alter Otago Peninsula bus services to accommodate the needs of schoolchildren.
Cr Trevor Kempton said the resolution by the city council was a ‘‘long, long time coming’’.
‘‘Over time, ORC has been proactive in its attempts to get a formal governance group on public transport and the DCC, while I’m delighted that they’ve come to this point, they have taken an awful long time to pick that up.’’
Cr Michael Deaker said he imagined the decision of the city council would ‘‘disappear’’ as other similar agreements did in the past.
‘‘We have had many, many discussions with the DCC over this. We have waited endlessly for them to come to us because we’ve welcomed it.’’
Cr Sam Neill said it was a ‘‘much better fit’’ for the city council to run bus services.
Cr Michael Laws said transferring services to the city council would solve a lot of the regional council’s problems.
It was ‘‘easy enough’’ to introduce a private law change through Parliament to allow this if both parties agreed, he said.
Cr Stephen Woodhead said it would be better to make the decision after it was clear what the wording of the city council’s resolution actually was.
The part of the regional council motion mentioning exploring the relinquishing of bus management was added at the meeting.
Several councillors voted against the entire motion as that part was seen as legislatively difficult.
The city council’s motion was suggested by city councillor Kate Wilson and was added to its submission on the regional council’s longterm plan.
She said yesterday she would have been surprised if the regional council had passed any resolution before the submission had been officially received.
‘‘We want to have a joint voice with them which also means taking some of that criticism as well.’’
There had been operational partnerships between the two councils in the past, but apart from Cr Aaron Hawkins acting as one of the commissioners during the regional council’s regional transport plan process, there had been no joint panel, she said.
In the past six months the regional council had improved the bus system markedly but there was still room for improvement, which is why a joint committee was proposed, she said.
In February, chief executives of both councils said they were exploring a joint bus funding model in Dunedin, similar to Queenstown’s.