Mayor takes criticism on the chin

New Plymouth’s mayor has taken the blame for shortcomings highlighted in an audit report about how the council went about developing its plan for the district’s future.

An Audit New Zealand report found the New Plymouth District Council had not followed the rules and had exposed itself to unnecessary risk by delegating the adoption of its Long Term Plan 2018 to 2028 to Neil Holdom and chief executive Craig Stevenson.

The report, which is included in today’s extraordinary meeting agenda to adopt the LTP, also found the first draft did not meet some of the requirements of the Local Government Act, there were inconsistencies between various documents and there was a lack of supporting documentation for some of the items included.

‘‘The first draft of the LTP CD that was presented for audit was extremely brief and lacked detail that would be necessary to comply with the LGA and allow the public to understand the issues being consulted on.’’

Holdom, who is serving his first term as the district’s mayor, said going through the process had been a learning exercise but took responsibility for the criticism.

‘‘I think what is clear from the report, by looking to add in the infrastructure work in a really short time frame following the water outage caused by ExCyclone Gita, we undertook a huge amount of work in a short period of time and quality suffered.’’

Earlier this month the controversial sale of the Fitzroy Golf Club and the redevelopment of multi million-dollar flagship projects, the TSB Stadium and Todd Energy Aquatic Centre were removed from the LTP.

Holdom apologised to the public and councillors for any grief caused by his push to sell the recreational reserve land.

He described the report as fair and balanced with clear recommendations on what steps needed to be taken to address the issues.

‘‘I believe that everybody in this organisation is committed to improving.’’

Holdom was pleased the LTP had been approved by Audit NZ and believed it reflected what the community wanted.

‘‘The key thing for the people in the New Plymouth district is that they’ve got a plan for the next 10 years that reflects what our public have told us, reflects a commitment to the environment, a commitment to invest in infrastructure with some incremental exciting projects as well.

‘‘I have always said we would listen to the community and we have certainly done that.’’

Councillor John McLeod, who along with Murray Chong and Shaun Biesiek voted against delegating authority, said the public deserved better.

‘‘It’s the most criticism I’ve seen from an auditor general on a long term plan since I’ve been sitting at the table,’’ he said.

NPDC chief executive Craig Stevenson agreed things could have been done better in some areas including quality control.