Editorial: It's no win for council over debt reduction

Anna Wallis Photo/File

"Reduce debt" was the rallying cry at last year's local body elections.

It was time to make a dent in the debt owed by Wanganui District Council, which in November stood at $84 million.

Many council candidates mentioned rates reduction as a priority and one ticket, Rates Restraint, had repaying debt as one of its key policies.

But that mood for change seems to have swung back the other way. The Rates Restraint team was rejected in the election and the public are rejecting such sales with a vengeance. The proposed sale of Handley Reserve has been reversed. And now the council, which wants to sell just the back part of Montgomery Reserve, is being pressured to do a u-turn on that.

If we call such reserves assets, then what is happening in Wanganui is a reflection of national moves to sell off assets to repay debt. When it comes to the crunch, large sections of the public don't like this kind of fundraising at either local or national level.

But unlike Vonnie Cave, who is petitioning the council not to sell Montgomery Reserve, I think the $500,000 the land would get is quite a bit of money in terms of the total debt. Every "little" bit helps. Mrs Cave is right that Wanganui's coastal position should be exploited. But that's a different argument.

We have more sales to come: Tennison Oaks Reserve in Oakland Ave, part of the Cornmarket Reserve in Somme Pde and the Plimmer Bush Reserve in Kauarapaoa Rd, 70 Swiss Ave and 31 Duigan St (Lorenzdale Park) have all been listed for possible sale.

The council can't win on this one. And if public pressure forces such moves to be abandoned, we can't have a go at council for not trying everything to reduce what we owe, which seemed to be a priority a few months back.