Two new faces look to freshen Carterton

Mike Ashby

Carterton voters have blooded two new councillors who bring to the table both rural aims and urban ambitions.

Incumbent Carterton Mayor Ron Mark returned unopposed to the top job, while long-time Ponatahi farmer Mike Ashby and Gladstone wheelwright Greg Lang were voted in to council as newcomers alongside incumbent councillors John Booth, Elaine Brazendale, Ruth Carter, Jill Greathead, Bill Knowles, and Brian Poulsen.

Mr Lang, a past Ironman competitor who yesterday was speaking after "sweating out my cold" in a 10-kilometre race in Masterton, said the district was a concord of urban and rural elements and he was committed to helping create a thriving district "from within the council, and from outside the council as well".

Mr Lang shifted with his family to Wairarapa close to 20 years ago and while Carterton seemed especially buoyant today, he said, it was essential to view the district as an amalgam of its rural and urban components.

"The district is all one because without the town you don't have the country's strengths really - they go hand in hand really - and there's such a good feeling with everything in the town at the moment.

"It's really good and with a proactive council, some really great stuff can happen," he said.

Mr Ashby has been farming in the Ponatahi area for about the past four decades and he had been committed to riparian planting and fencing since the 1990s, he said.

The "environmental impact of farming" was as vital to him as the Carterton district sewerage scheme, he said.

"I'm focused on looking at the (Wairarapa) irrigation scheme and on the Carterton sewerage scheme - that really has to be investigated and worked on," he said.

"We've got to be very wise in what we do with the sewerage scheme."