Infrastructure advice ‘critical’
Former elected officials have pointed to poor advice, the local government system and even ratepayers as being responsible for the state of New Plymouth’s infrastructure.
New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom claimed this week the district’s infrastructure needed hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades, after years of neglect while council focused on cutting costs and keeping rates low.
The claim followed an extraordinary meeting called to urgently approve millions in funding to repair a thermal dryer at the Wastewater Treatment Plant that was at risk of total failure after years of penny pinching on its maintenance budget.
Former New Plymouth councillor Shaun Biesiek, who sat at the table from 2007-2019, said blame for the state of the district’s infrastructure did not necessarily sit only with councillors but also with the advice they from council officers.
He did not think it would take ‘‘hundreds of millions’’ to fix.
‘‘The advice councillors get is critical,’’ he said. ‘‘It would be really good for someone to go back and get the last couple of reports on the thermal dryer and see where the advice changed.
‘‘Someone’s mismanaged that and it’s not councillors. Councillors can only act on the advice they’re given. You can change it to a point, but you’re only tweaking at the edges.’’
He said advice can change, but they had to make the best decision possible at the time. Councillors also had to ask the right questions, and getting a second opinion could help.
‘‘It’s not distrusting council officers – it’s how do you check to received make sure you’re comfortable.’’
Former councillor John McLeod, whose mantra over four terms on council was that the local government body should spend on ‘‘needs before wants’’, agreed that council officers and their advice was a key influence – but councillors still made the final decision.
‘‘They did not look at the detail,’’ he said. ‘‘Core infrastructure has been rundown for a while now – we’ve been doing it piecemeal.’’
Current councillor Harry Duynhoven said NPDC temporarily cut back on maintenance during his 2010-13 mayoral term to help curb spending, but only after being told the infrastructure was in good condition.
‘‘We were over-maintaining; that’s what they thought,’’ he said. ‘‘The next council decided they weren’t going to ramp things up again.’’
One-term mayor Andrew Judd said councillors had to take the best advice available to them at the time – but the blame was collective.
‘‘It’s collective between the advice given and the particular decisions made on the day.’’
He would even extend it out to ratepayers in terms of understanding what was needed and holding those elected to account, he said.
Judd said following the global financial crisis in 2008 a lot of cash was taken out of circulation.
One way councils around the country responded was reducing the amount of money put aside for depreciation – the fund used to replace or upgrade council property. There were decisions made to ‘‘sweat out’’ an asset instead even though that carried risk of failure, he said.
‘‘We’ve been guilty of just doing what needs to be done.’’
However, Peter Tennent, who was mayor of the district from 2001 to 2010, said he was proud of the work done in his term.
While maintenance issues would always happen, he did not think there had been underspending.
‘‘A lot of thoughts have gone into decisions that have been made. I think this community has invested significantly over generations.
‘‘There’s not many areas of the country that aren’t envious of what we have.’’
Lynn Bublitz, who served two terms as Tennent’s deputy mayor, said low interest rates made it a good time to spend the money to get the district’s infrastructure up to scratch. He said current council debt of about $140m was well below what it could borrow.
‘‘The trouble is the expenses always increase and often they increase greater than the amount of money that’s set aside in depreciation,’’ he said.
‘‘It’s a matter of now addressing it. It’s no one in particular’s fault; it’s just the way the system works.’’