By Gwynn Compton
“Kāpiti should be included in talks around regional amalgamation and not shut out in the cold yet again, following the news that Porirua, Upper Hutt, Lower Hutt, and Wellington are in the early stages of discussing the issue.
The fact that Kāpiti is, once again, being excluded from discussions about regional amalgamation is denying our community even the chance to help shape any such proposal or have a conversation on whether we should be in or out. The likely result is Kāpiti will end up shut out in the cold and miss out on opportunities to deliver better community infrastructure, services, governance, accountability, transparency, and cost-effectiveness.
The latest snub of Kāpiti comes on the back of a similar issue back in March when the Wellington Regional Leadership Committee opted to write to Local Government Minister Simeon Brown, without any engagement with their communities, in support of a proposal that also excluded Kāpiti from any amalgamated entity.
This is the second time this year that Kāpiti has, without any engagement with our community on the issue, found itself shut out of discussions about regional amalgamation, and it’s not the place of Mayor Janet Holborow or the Council to be unilaterally making decisions on whether we should be at the table without reference to our community.
As much as some people might be stuck living in 1984 when Kāpiti was quite separate to the rest of the Wellington region, the reality is – thanks to the expansion of commuter rail and opening of Transmission Gully and the Expressway – things have changed massively over the past 40 years to the point where we are economically, socially, and culturally interdependent with the communities of Wellington, the Hutt Valley, and Porirua.
To illustrate this point, Kāpiti Coast District Council’s own workforce plan, published just two years ago, identified that a quarter of Kāpiti’s workforce commutes south for their jobs.
Similarly, the overwhelming source of Kāpiti’s population growth is a result of people from the rest of the Wellington region moving north, which strengthens the ever-growing economic, family, and social interconnectedness between our communities.
As someone who grew up in Wellington and has lived in Kāpiti for more than a decade, I’m both a proud Kāpiti Coaster and Wellingtonian. Decisions made across the rest of the region directly impact our communities here on the coast, and the only way we can truly influence those issues is by having votes at the governing table of an amalgamated council.
If we’re being denied the chance to even be involved in discussing the possibility of such an entity being created, should the amalgamation be successful then Kāpiti will end up like councils bordering Auckland where they have to deal with all the issues created by their much larger neighbour but have no power to influence them, and ultimately get forgotten by central government.”
Gwynn Compton also has a podcast on Local Government at https://localaotearoa.co.nz/
NB.: Gwynn Compton was a Kāpiti Coast District councillor in the 2019-2022 triennium when he championed both local government reform, which led to the Future for Local Government Review, and improved accountability and transparency, which led to an Ombudsman’s review of the sector.
