Mayor’s UK water trip to cost ratepayers $18k
Ratepayers will fork out almost $18k for Lower Hutt mayor Campbell Barry to travel to England and Wales to investigate water infrastructure.
Barry will join a week-long delegation to London, Manchester and Cardiff in June with Infrastructure New Zealand.
The trip comes as Hutt City Council’s debt blows out to $1 billion and residents face a 15.9% rates hike, and a water crisis due to ageing pipes.
On Saturday, The Post revealed four of Wellington council’s most senior staff – including chief executive Barbara McKerrow and chief infrastructure officer Siobhan Procter – are taking part in a Harvard University programme in New York as key decisions are made on the city’s long-term budget and infrastructure plans.
The mayor’s office has budgeted $10,000 for flights, and a further $7900 registration fee to the industry association to cover accommodation, transport while in the United Kingdom, site visits and meals.
Air NZ return flights on those dates range from $3151 in the economy cabin, $6771 premium economy, and $15,556 in business class. The council’s travel policy would allow Barry to fly business class, because of the distance, but he is likely to opt for premium economy. In Manchester, the delegation will explore devolution and city deals – a model introduced in the UK in
2010 to allow greater collaboration between central and local government on infrastructure. The National-led Government campaigned on establishing city deals in New Zealand.
In Cardiff, the delegation will study Welsh water provisions, which includes a not-for-profit utility with assets financed by debt.
A spokesperson for Barry’s office said the council approved the trip “because it considered it would be worthwhile to more deeply understand effective infrastructure approaches that have been deployed overseas”.
“The mayor has long been concerned with the poor management of infrastructure in New Zealand, particularly by local government over successive decades.
‘‘Given the $1.5 billion council is proposing to spend on water infrastructure alone in the next 10 years, it is appropriate to understand how other jurisdictions have and haven’t achieved better long-term decision-making and more value for money from their infrastructure investments.”
The statement said Barry, and Hutt City Council, would play a key role in putting forward a proposal to Government in the coming year on its ‘Local Water Done Well’ – a replacement for Three Waters. “The mayor and council’s expectation is that the lessons from this trip will be directly applied to council’s programme, support improvements and inform future models/proposals in the Wellington region,” the statement said.
Nick Leggett, Infrastructure NZ’s chief executive, confirmed that other local body representatives would be on the delegation.
Final registrations weren’t confirmed yet. “It’s important we are thinking about water reform in other countries and the different models that have been applied – both badly and well,” said Leggett, who is also chairperson of Wellington Water, the region’s utility.
“Manchester is a standout for a successful city deal and we want to understand how central and local government have put their differences aside to transform a region.”
Leggett said the trade body was sensitive to public sector spending and the costs reflected that. New Zealand often didn’t adapt to international thinking well, he added.
“It can spend time and money trying to build models and approaches needlessly from scratch. We are attempting to short circuit that for City Deals, water reform and devolution more generally by examining how these perform in the UK.”