Wanganui District Council will scrutinise its tree maintenance contract with Treeco, following concerns expressed by Cr Ray Stevens.
He told Monday's council meeting the existing contract had no performance measures and was self-auditing.
Council agreed its current contract with Treeco, excluding power line clearance work, be examined during its next round of
meetings.
The review is a success for Cr Stevens who last September argued the contract, which underwent a negotiated rollover with a slightly increased specification for one year, should be re-examined.
Council also agreed on Monday to extend its contract with Treeco to cover increased maintenance of trees around power lines.
From July, new electricity regulations dealing with hazards from trees become fully effective.
In its 2004-05 annual plan council increased the tree maintenance budget by $150,000 to reduce the number of non-conforming trees.
Recreation and culture manager Keith Hindson told council Treeco would divide the work up into three equal amounts, undertaking 33 percent of the work itself and subcontracting the remaining work equally between Tree Truck and Arborco.
The three Wanganui companies were the only local Powerco-approved contractors able to work on trees near power lines.
Mr Hindson said the contract extension would allow council to get on top of the increasing number of cut or trim notices and to hopefully be proactive in identifying any potential hazards before they became a problem.
Under the new regulations the council must manage its street trees in both the rural and city areas. Before July if a tree is encroaching the growth limit zone a cut or trim notice may be issued, but after July 1 the notice must be issued.
Cr Don McGregor said the new regulations had the potential to cost council a lot of money.
While council had no choice about obeying the regulations, Powerco had said it was prepared to negotiate in some cases. Mayor Michael Laws said it was a very serious issue and if Powerco started to play hard ball could cost an additional $250,000 a year. It could result in the removal of some of the city's tree-lined boulevards.
Cr Rangi Wills said there were hundreds of trees through power lines in the district and it was potentially a serious problem if they caused power outages.
The problem was not going to go away and council needed to do something pretty drastic, pretty quick.
Cr Sue Westwood said the new regulations were a major impost on all of New Zealand and she would like to see a joint approach from local authorities to power line companies.
