Waitakere Ranges bill to get $500,000 push

More than $500,000 of rates will be spent on the push for the draft Waitakere Ranges National Heritage Bill.

The figure was quoted in a pamphlet given out by Structure Plan Advocates Network (Span) members who picketed the Waitakere City Council's series of "get the facts" meetings which ended yesterday.

Span said the cost of the ranges protection project so far was "about half a million dollars".

This was worked out from the council's response to an official information act request.

A Waitakere city councillor on the ranges protection working party, Janet Clews, said yesterday that councillors were given a figure of about $500,000.

"There are other things the money could be used for but I think the project is an important thing for the future," said Mrs Clews, who called for further public feedback in February when the council considered whether to back the bill.

She said spending on consultation was necessary if the council were to make up its mind next month after 40 years of lobbying to have the special features of the ranges recognised.

The Auckland Regional Council decided to back the draft bill in February. It agreed to share costs of consultation so far with Waitakere and legal fees for the drafting of the bill.

Over the past six months the ARC had spent $70,000, said a spokesman.

Waitakere chief executive Harry O'Rourke told councillors a total of $435,000 had been spent in three years' work on the project.

But the council estimate of staff costs brings the total cost of the project to $559,000.

Normally, intensive public consultation exercises to guide councillors' decisions cost within the $100,000 mark, such as Manukau City's year-long community plan exercise, "Tomorrow's Manukau".

Span chairman Alan Wagstaff said his members felt the ranges would be better off if the money had been spent on weed and pest control.

The ranges' outstanding landscapes were already protected under inactive provisions of the Waitakere District Plan. "Yet this council is spending a huge amount and their reason is that the area is under-protected."

Waitakere Ranges Protection Society president John Edgar said the boundary of the protected area would be decided at the end of this month, and if the foothills were excluded, most of the work on the project would be in vain.

The society hoped for a show of support at a meeting on Wednesday at Henderson High School.