Penny Gaylor: 'Submissions certainly did make a valuable contribution, and an impact on our thinking'

Penny Gaylor.

Weekly column by Kāpiti's Greater Wellington Regional Council representative Penny Gaylor.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday Wellington regional councillors had full days of hearing oral submissions from individuals and organisations across our region for our Long Term Plan.

As with every other council in the country, and as all required to be undertaken and completed in the same timeframe, we undertake this expansive exercise every three years, with the view for determining our commitments for the next 10 years and beyond.

We then spent Thursday poring over the input of those submitters and others who had sent in their views. Submissions certainly did make a valuable contribution, and an impact on our thinking.

At our upcoming meeting on Thursday, June 29 we will have the paper to council that presents the adjustments that includes the changes from submitters.

I just wanted to share some examples of the thinking provided by our community that particularly resonated. Heads up, our adjustments to our draft plan are mostly geared around delivering more environmental outcomes. Music to my ears as chair of GWRC's environment committee.

We had submitters in from Porirua groups asking for progress on the implementation of our GWRC Whaitua plans. They were so right. And there was unanimous sort around the table to do better by them.

Predator Free Wellington, which receives money from GWRC already, asked for more that would match the committed contributions of Wellington City Council and Government. Our deliberations on this were challenging because while we understood the benefits, those of us outside of that ward are also challenged with lack of funding to tackle management of trapping predators.

So in the end we concluded we would further invest in Predator Free Wellington and also support more activities across our region.

A Kāpiti Coast submission that received support was from an Ōtaki group that was not asking for money, but for GWRC's support to be the local government agency to lead the purchase of a soon to be surplus piece of NZTA land, once the Peka Peka to Ōtaki Bypass is complete. From there the group want to develop the land-locked land which sits wedged between the railway line and the bypass.

Their examples of potential use also captured the attention of my colleagues, especially the idea that it could be used as a further extension module for the existing community solar farm owned and operated by Energise Ōtaki.

As they said, one potential customer could be GWRC who will be electricity users once we have our new electric trains servicing Ōtaki.