Potential council restructure flagged

The rapidly increasing population of Cambridge could see more councillors representing the town in the near future.

‘‘While the number of people living in Cambridge has grown, the number of councillors representing them has not,’’ Waipa¯ mayor Jim Mylchreest said.

An official review of the make-up of Waipa¯ District Council will soon be underway.

Under local government rules, Waipa¯ should technically have more councillors representing Cambridge, in exchange for fewer representing Te Awamutu, proportionate to their populations.

Legally, all councils need to review the representative roles of their councils every six years. Mylchreest said the rapid growth of Cambridge has ‘‘tilted the numbers’’ since the last review, and it’s time for another one.

The Local Electoral Act asks for each councillor to represent the same number of people, plus or minus 10 per cent. Therefore, each elected member in Waipa¯ is expected to represent 3,870 to 4,730 people.

He said for Waipa¯ to keep within the rules, Cambridge would need to have at least one more councillor, whereas Te Awamutu would be represented by at least one less.

‘‘We are required to look at that and at the same time have a good look at other options available to us to make sure our district has the kind of representation it wants,’’ Mylchreest said.

In the review, Waipa¯ will consider multiple options, including increasing or decreasing the number of wards, removing wards altogether so voters elect representatives to cover the whole district, increasing or decreasing the number of councillors in the district and individual wards, or whether to keep urban and rural wards or combine some of them.

The review will not reconsider establishing a Ma¯ori Ward, as a decision not to establish such a ward was made by council recently in October 2017. Council would present a formal proposal to the Waipa¯ community in July, so that any change could be enacted for the 2019 local body elections.

Informal feedback can be made via a survey, from council offices or completed online at waipadc.govt.nz/ haveyoursay