Partnerships key to Waikato’s future

Local government – love it or hate it – is shaping the place you and your family live in today and will live in tomorrow. It’s about vision and building futures.

Approaching the next set of local government elections in October it is timely to take a long hard look at progress and to consider future opportunities.

How have we been adding value to our communities and how can we in the future? How can we attract more movers and shakers into local government? How do we harness the expertise and passion of our wider community and its many leaders?

Over the past three years I have no doubt that Waikato Regional Council has particularly led and shaped thinking and planning about water management, especially the quality and allocation of water.

Embarking on one of New Zealand’s most comprehensive collaborative processes, the council and iwi partners have used community and technical know-how in the Healthy Rivers/ Wai Ora process to develop a proposed plan change for the Waikato and Waipa rivers. It will change the face of how we manage and protect our water for decades to come.

The regional council has also worked closely with Waikato mayors to establish a business-led advisory group to drive economic development, and to develop a Waikato Plan.

That economic development work strongly identified that there was a powerful Waikato story to tell, that we should be louder and prouder in the telling of it.

Again, our communities worked with us to develop The Waikato Story to be launched this month. It will give us a positive voice and a platform for many other business and community stories to be told.

Going forward we need to do more than tell our story, we need to continue our partnerships to grow innovation, business and well-being.

Continuing to work with others and pulling together towards shared goals is vital for success. Another key regional council action over the last three years has been a focus on constraining rates while being effective.

Striking a balance between spending to make progress and affordability, we have been able to achieve low average rate rises for existing ratepayers of 0.9 per cent and 0.4 per cent over two financial years, and an expected average reduction of 1.3 per cent in 2016-17.

In doing so we’ve been able to drive operational savings of $1.86 million over the past two years, including savings identified through our Long Term Plan and operational savings this financial year.

Still future progress relies to a degree on local government investment and in looking to create win-win scenarios with key stakeholders. While we are blessed with strong philanthropic and volunteer sectors in the Waikato that have helped build our special places, they can’t, nor should they are, do everything.

Paula Southgate is chairperson of Waikato Regional Council. The views expressed are her own.